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Further Insights Into My 86-Year-Old Black Dad – OpEd

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t occurred to me that my 86 year old black dad is a man of “firsts” — a born pioneer, boldly going where no other black had gone before.

In 1946, Dad and Jackson were the only black Merchant Marines on their ship and the first “coloreds” to land at the base in St Petersburg Florida. Dad came close to being hung by an angry mob simply for being there.

Dad had a tough beginning. The product of an extra-martial affair, Dad was raised by his aunt, Aunt Nee.

Aunt Nee was a pretty remarkable woman. Though she never graduated high school, Aunt Nee (Rev. Anita Bethea) was extremely articulate, well read, a great singer (reminiscent of Mahalia Jackson), a gifted speaker, student of the Bible and pastor of her own storefront church in Baltimore, Maryland.

I asked Dad what kept him, growing up as a fatherless black child, on the straight and narrow, not getting into crime or drugs. Without hesitation, Dad replied, “Aunt Nee!”

I knew what Dad was talking about. Aunt Nee had this way about her. Her approval felt important. Aunt Nee babysat me. “Lloyd Marcus, you should be ashamed of yourself.” A spanking for my naughty behavior would have felt less painful.

She was a born teacher; no lazy or sloppy speaking was tolerated. Aunt Nee sent me to the corner store. “Ask the grocer for U-nee-da Biscuits”. She distinctly pronounced each syllable.

When Dad was a teen, he was really excited about the latest fashion craze, the zoot suit. Despite his pleas, Aunt Nee refused to allow Dad to purchase a zoot suit because she thought only hoodlums wore zoot suits. That is called parenting, folks.

An entrepreneur since age ten, Dad shined shoes at the bus station on weekends; proudly hauling in a bountiful $1.25 from shoe shines and tips. Dad paid rent to Aunt Nee, treated himself to a day at the movies with popcorn and purchased his first article of clothing; a t-shirt. Dad bragged to his buddies, “I’m buying my own clothes now.” You can not get such a feeling of self esteem, confidence and pride from cradle-to-grave welfare.

Dad said he and a buddy were misbehaving once on a public bus; nothing serious, but a bit annoying to passengers. A woman said, “It’s how they were raised.” Dad said her comment cut like a knife and stopped him in his tracks. He knew Aunt Nee had raised him better. Rev-Lloyd-Marcus

Aunt Nee and Dad had a tradition of beginning the new year on their knees in prayer. As a young adult partying in bars on New Year’s Eve, Dad would run home just before midnight to begin the new year on his knees in prayer.

Dad recalled, as a young Merchant Marine, flirting with a much older woman. The beautiful 31-year-old was sitting on his lap, and everything was going great until he accidentally replied to something she said with, “Yes Ma’am”. Overhearing, a fellow sailor chuckled and said, “It’s hard to break way from that home training.”

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Dad was a typical young person, but never strayed too far from the foundation Aunt Nee instilled in him.

I asked Dad, “With no role model, what made you pursue things not typically pursued by blacks?” Dad replied, “I don’t know. Whenever a door opened, I walked through it.”

In the 1950s, Dad was one of a few blacks who broke the color barrier to become a Baltimore City Firefighter.

Dad was Baltimore City’s first black Firefighter of the Year, two times.

Dad was Baltimore City’s first black paramedic.

Dad was the Baltimore City Fire Department’s first black Chaplain.

An exclusive country club offered a special reduced membership rate to “all” firefighters. Dad noted the word “all”. He joined the club. Dad took my younger brothers Jerry and David for a swim in the pool. A stunned black staffer approached Dad in the locker room, “How on earth did you get in here?” When Dad and my brothers got into the swimming pool, the white members exited the pool. Dad kept coming back and eventually the behavior of the white members changed.

After the passing of the Civil Rights bill, Dad took our family to a whites only drive-in-movie. Dad said the ushers directed our car, “That’s it, that’s it, keep going”. Upon realizing that the ushers had guided our car through, out of the drive-in-movie, and back to the main road, Dad and my mom erupted into laughter. As Dad was telling me the story he had difficulty containing his laughter. He still thinks the incident was quite funny.

That is who my dad is, an easy going, good-hearted and upbeat remarkable man.

Years ago, I wrote a tribute song to Dad titled, “Real Man”. bit.ly/QgkMv6

At 86, Dad’s mind is as sharp as ever. He still pastors four churches. Praise God! I am extremely grateful for every day, I have him in my life.


Rosenberg’s Rubbishing Of BDS Misses The Point – OpEd

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In an article asserting that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) Movement is “irrelevant”, M. J. Rosenberg has written, under the headline The Goal Of The BDS Movement Is Dismantling Israel, Not The ’67 Occupation, “The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two states for two peoples.” The question he chose to ignore – I wonder why? – is this: What are the most likely future scenarios if Israel’s leaders remain totally opposed to the creation of a viable Palestine state on all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with either East Jerusalem its capital or Jerusalem an undivided, open city and the capital of two states?

But first let’s take a brief look at Rosenberg’s critique (rubbishing) of BDS.

He opened it by noting that the University of Michigan’s student government voted down a resolution that would have begun the process of divesting from companies doing business with Israel. Then this:

“The reason why BDS keeps failing despite the almost universal recognition that the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the blockade of Gaza are illegal and immoral is that the BDS movement is not targeting the occupation per se. Its goal is the end of the State of Israel itself. In its view, all of historic Palestine is occupied territory; that means Tel Aviv and Haifa as much as Hebron and Nablus… Israel is not going to dismantle itself and Jews will not be the first people in the world to relinquish the right to self-determination.”

A question I would like Rosenberg answer is this. Since the Jews are from many different homelands, with very few of them having any biological connection to the ancient Hebrews, how could they, all Jews everywhere, have had a “right” to self-determination IN PALESTINE (the right claimed by Zionism and given substance by ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine of about three-quarters of its indigenous Arab inhabitants)?

The argument that the UN partition plan gave Jews a right to self-determination in a part of Palestine is easily dismissed for the nonsense it is. The UN had no right to assign any part of Palestine to alien Jewish immigrants without the consent of the majority Arab population. (And prior to that Britain had no right to give Zionism a spurious degree of legitimacy with the Balfour Declaration).

Rosenberg is correct when states that BDS’s goal of “dismantling” and “eradicating” Israel is indicated by its commitment not only to ending the 1967 occupation but also promoting the Palestinian right of return. The return of large numbers of Palestinian refugees would indeed mean the end of Israel but it could have seen off that potential danger if it had been wise enough to make peace with Arafat’s PLO after he had prepared the ground on his side for unthinkable compromise – the two-state solution – at the end of 1979. Arafat and his most senior Fatah leadership colleagues were reluctantly reconciled to the view that if they were to have the support of the major powers, the right of return would have to be restricted to the territory of the Palestinian mini state. They could not say so publicly without real and hard evidence that Israel was serious about peace on terms they could accept but that was their position and Israel’s leaders were aware of it.

Arafat knew that some and perhaps many diaspora Palestinians would accuse him of betraying their cause if he made peace with Israel on terms that required to right of return to be limited to the territory of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; but fully supported by all of his most senior Fatah leadership colleagues, he took the view that it was better for the Palestinians to have “something concrete” rather than nothing at all. (As I have previously written, he also dared to hope that one or two generations of a two-state peace with Israel would lead by mutual consent to one state for all, in which case the Palestinian right of return could be considered again).

Now back to Rosenberg’s assertion that the solution to the conflict is “two states for two peoples”.

The point he misses, perhaps because there has not yet been a formal burial attended by Western leaders and the mainstream media, is that the two-state solution has long been dead. (In truth it was probably never alive in Zionism’s mind). So what are the most likely scenarios for the future?

I can see three possibilities.

  1. With the assistance of its Palestinian agents (Mohammed Dahlan to name only one) and the unspeakable, secret support of most of not all Arab regimes, Israel succeeds in effectively taking over the Palestine Authority and forcing the Palestinians to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table – a few Bantustans which the Palestinians could call a state if they wished.
  2. A final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (This scenario could see the implementation of Zionism’s Jordan Option – overthrowing the Hashemite monarchy and saying to the Palestinians, as Sharon was hoping to do in 1982 if he had succeeded in exterminating the entire PLO leadership in Beirut, “There’s your state. Go take it.”)
  3. One state with equal rights and security for all.

Some might say there is a fourth possibility – a violent Palestinian uprising fuelled by despair. Though understandable, that would be a disaster for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians because it would save Israel’s leaders from having to create a pretext for a final ethnic cleansing).

Rosenberg asserted that a BDS Movement “dedicated to the eradication of Israel as a country is never going to achieve support other than from a radical fringe.”

In my view he is wrong to the extent that the BDS Movement is already supported by more than a radical fringe and is gathering momentum. But I also think he is right to the extent that the BDS Movement could and would gain much more support and momentum if its goal was only ending the 1967 occupation to create the space for a viable Palestinian state. It does seem to be the case that very many people who would support the BDS Movement on that basis hold back from doing so because they don’t want to be associated with a campaign that is committed to dismantling and eradicating Israel.

In the light of the above it seems to me that the best and most effective way for the BDS Movement to respond to its critics and detractors would be to give priority to spelling out why One State For All, and thus the dismantling and eradication of the Zionist entity, is in the best interests of all – not only Arabs and Jews but all of us, governments and peoples of all faiths and none everywhere.

The point being that if the Zionist state is not dismantled and eradicated it will most likely take the region and quite possibly the world to hell. I wrote in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, that the red warning lights of Armageddon are twinkling.

But let me end this piece on a positive note. Properly presented the case for One State is not only about the need to stop the countdown to catastrophe for all, it is also truly inspirational. Though I will be ridiculed and abused by rabid anti-Semites for stating it, the following is the essence of the case.

The Jews, generally speaking, are the intellectual elite of the Western world. The Palestinians, generally speaking, are the intellectual elite of the Arab world. Together in peace and partnership in one state they could change the region for the better and, by so doing, give new hope and inspiration to the whole world.

If that vision or something very like it was promoted by the BDS Movement, I think its critics and detractors would be exposed for the irrelevance they are.

Saudi Arabia Court Sentences 18 Terrorists To 104 Years In Jail

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A special court in Riyadh has sentenced 18 terrorists to a collective 104 years in jail for various subversive and illegal activities including attempts to smuggle missiles into the Kingdom from Yemen.

They received sentences ranging from two months to 27 years. One of the convicts was jailed for 13 years, local media reported Friday.

A major charge against them was smuggling a woman and her children with forged travel documents on a plane from Riyadh to Jazan without a male guardian. They also helped the woman and her children to cross the border illegally into Yemen, with the aim of sending her to Syria and Iraq, on the orders of an Al-Qaeda member.

They did not inform her relatives or the Saudi authorities of her whereabouts.

The court convicted them of meeting with the leader of a terror cell planning to launch attacks in the Kingdom, providing cover for the cell members and undergoing training to use heavy weapons and explosives.

The court found them guilty of helping a man to enter the country who was an expert on improvised explosive devices, and had organized a work visa for him in the name of the first defendant’s father. They had in their possession electronic chips and earphones of special cell phones that served as remote controls for detonating bombs.

They were also convicted of making deadly poisons, trying to persuade young people to fight abroad, terror financing, possession of publications inciting people to undertake armed fighting, and possession of arms and ammunition without licenses with aim to disrupt the country’s security.

The court also fined several defendants and slapped them with travel bans for periods equaling and more than their jail time. They have 30 days to appeal.

It’s Showtime On The Court – OpEd

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By Bikram Vohra

If ‘packaging’ can turn cricket into a circus then why not give the same treatment to the humdrum, relatively monotonous world of power tennis? The International Premier Tennis League scheduled for November this year brings together the current champs with former champs like Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras to create four teams (Bangkok, Dubai, Singapore and Mumbai) which cities will also be the venues for the traveling show.

Before we discuss exactly how dramatically the purist tennis lover will commit hara-kiri over the mutated format, let’s take a quick gander at it. Ten players to a team and a one set game which goes into a tie breaker if the score reaches 5 all. The teams will fight each other in men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles, and legends’ singles. Each team will play eight such matches, half at home and half away. Sunday night serve and volley for eight weeks.

The money is huge. Like a massive energy pill. In the million of dollars. Even Nadal, who has been whining about the strenuous tennis schedule and no rest period since his famous 2009 quote when he slagged off those who worked the calendar has perked up and got a second wind for these post season matches. In fairness, if you are getting a million dollars a night to muck about the court with no ATP points in the mix and only ‘entertainment’ as your act, you’d be surprised how exhaustion would disappear. This is a holiday. It’s Billy Butlin meets Club Med time.

Obviously, the League hasn’t made many friends. Obscenely rich in sponsorship (or so it indicates) , it has swiftly pummeled traditional tennis into submission…Bobo the clown has won. While sports writers are moaning about this fall from grace and the divisive texture of the proposed annual carnival the only thing that really matters is whether it will take off or suffer a broken wing.

Cricket played in costumes festooned with ads and all the new electronic doodahs not only has a strong mass base but it is taken very seriously by the fans and the players. Tennis is a lot more elitist and limited both in stadium capacity and eyeballs for adspend so the risk factor is higher. Also, while the promise of the money has been made the success of the experiment will depend on it being received. If the bank gives you the nod for that kind of bread, darling you take the kids to Gstaad, I am going to Bangkok for the weekend.

We can grumble as much as we like about sport turning into absurd theater but if there is money in it and people enjoy the show and the antics of these famous players catch on and there is a mix of audio-visual theatrics and talent, well, OK, game on. Surely, Mahesh Bhupathi, the mastermind behind the league has already arranged scriptwriters to create snazzy one liners and happy ‘confrontational’ scenarios just short of ‘outrageous.’ Keep the fans rolling with mirth. It’s, after all, showtime.

Roger Federer is the only senior player to have scratched his name off the list. Conservative for now, he might just be watching to see if it takes off before he goes shopping for pom poms and a funny hat.

There is nothing so sacrosanct about sports celebs. If they are marketable, market them till their ‘sell by’ age and everyone make money till then.

There is only one major area of concern. If the league does catch on and becomes a fun thing to watch and attracts all the controversy that big money events do including betting and gambling and match fixing and then the four teams become eight and then twelve and turns competitive what happens to the relatively dreary Grand Slams and the current circuit. They will lose what little fizz is left. See what T20 did to Test cricket and even the one-dayers. It slew them despite all the artificial respiration to the contrary.

Bring on the dancing girls, the live bands and the movie stars who’ll bankroll the franchises. Tennis has become a teenybopper.

Teams
Singapore: Tomas Berdych, Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt, Bruno Soares, Patrick Rafter, Daniela Hantuchova, Nick Krygios,Serena Williams

Bangkok: Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, Victoria Azarenka, Andy Murray, Daniel Nestor, Carlos Moya, Kirsten Flipkens

Mumbai: Rafael Nadal, Gael Monfils, Pete Sampras, Rohan Bopanna, Ana Ivanovic, Sania Mirza, Fabrice Santoro

Dubai: Novak Djokovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Goran Ivanizevic, Janko Tipsarevic, Nenad Zimonic, Malek Jaziri, Martina Hingis.

Crimea: The Prize And The Price – OpEd

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By Fabrizio Bozzato and Tatiana Komarova

Russia’s takeover of Crimea represents the checkmate of a geopolitical chess game between the Kremlin and the West. The game was opened by Putin’s decision to give a safe haven to US whistleblower Edward Snowden, and then continued with the Syrian crisis – seeing Moscow outsmart and outplay the Obama Administration – and culminated into l’affaire Ukraine, in which Russia has carved for itself, rather than found, the opportunity for recapturing Crimea after sixty years of separation and, by doing so, finalizing the first annexation of another country’s territory in Europe since World War II. Vladimir Putin has won. Thus, now there are but two significant questions: 1) what is the prize of victory? And 2) what is the price of victory?

The most important trophy of victory is Crimea itself. Controlling the peninsula is a geostrategic essential for Russia. Leaving Crimea’s sentimental value aside, the region hosts the Black Sea Fleet naval base, from which Moscow can project force into and throughout the Mediterranean. Notably, the majority of the Black Sea coastline is held by NATO allies except for Georgia, which is keenly pursuing NATO membership, on the east and Ukraine in the north.

Therefore, for Moscow, losing its naval base in Crimea would be akin to military emasculation. By incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation, Putin has thus secured Russia’s enduring status as a Eurasian great power. Also, Russia’s assertiveness in protecting its Crimean naval base might result in Moscow establishing a substantial military presence in a key Asian theatre. In fact, Hanoi might decide that allowing strong-willed Russia to have its navy operating permanently from Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay would be a very effective way to counterweight Beijing’s increasing activism in the South China Sea.

Second, by showing uncompromising determination and effectively rattling his saber in Crimea, Putin has conveyed a sturdy message both to the West and to the former Soviet republics seeking to join NATO or other ‘Western arrangements’. Namely, Russia has geopolitical imperatives and is going to affirm and defend them with any means it will deem necessary.

The Kremlin has also made clear that it considers any intrusion in the Federation’s near abroad a strategic threat to Russian independence. Simply put, Russia means business. In addition, Putin has exposed Western impotence in a Europe still on holiday from strategy and further questioned the diplomatic resolve and martial credibility of the Obama Administration. From now on, Europeans would be better off to think strategically and be aware of their vulnerabilities when dealing with Moscow. Washington, for its part, must realize that Russia has learned to use the democracy and ‘responsibility to protect’ rhetoric in as Machiavellic a way as the US – and that the Russian President is a leader that thrives in confrontation, is now widely popular at home and, in a growingly multipolar world, has several supportive friends. Especially in Asia.

Third, on the domestic front the retaking of Crimea in spite of Western opposition has boosted Russian pride and nationalism. As a result, Russians are going to weather sanctions and diplomatic retaliation with their chins up. Actually, the US and the EU governments might find it difficult to put together – and cogently implement and sustain – a cohesive sanctions package. Because of their energy dependence on Russia and concern about losing contracts and economic links with Moscow, the Europeans are inclined not to be too heavy-handed with the Kremlin. Economic sanctions might end up hurting both ways, as people in Europe need to stay warm in winter. Besides, the Russian Federation is a large country with extensive resources and diversified trade partners. So, in key EU countries, the industry is lobbying vehemently against imposing sanctions on Russia. As for political-diplomatic sanctions, they are probably going to be generally ineffective. No doubt, Putin is going to wear the exclusion from G8 as a badge of honor at the next BRICS summit.

However, acquiring Crimea comes at a price, one that is both economic and diplomatic. The peninsula used to be umbilically reliant on Ukraine and the Russian government has acknowledged that the Crimean economy “looks no better than Palestine.” Therefore, bringing the region in would require massive financial and infrastructural investments from Moscow. Anyway, even if all of these investments added up to US$ 20 or 25 billion, it would still be small change for the cash-rich Russian government. This said, the combination of international enmity and punitive decisions might significantly impact on Russia’s economy and international standing. For example, Moscow will not be invited to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development any time soon, and will have to abandon any hope of including Ukraine – which has just signed an association agreement with the European Union – in the Russo-centric Eurasian Economic Union. Also, foreign investors could become more hesitant about risking capital in Russia and Russian companies could find it more difficult to obtain credit from Western lenders.

More importantly, Russia’s relations with the West are going to enter in a new phase marked by mutual distrust and confrontation. “If it is the price of greatness regained” might remark the Kremlin, “we are ready to pay it.” To Moscow’s advantage, the Cold War era is unlikely to return. History does not repeat itself. Today’s global political and economic ecosystem is one characterized by polycentricity and the tyranny of interdependence. Thus, envisaging a world which is once again neatly divided into two monadic blocks would be nothing short of unrealistic. Equally, to keep pursuing a vision of unilateralism in Europe would be detrimental both to the West and Russia. Time will tell whether the seizure of Crimea has been a masterstroke or a counterproductive move for Russia. If Moscow will be able to develop Crimea and turn it into a success story, it will prove that Russia is as responsible as it is resolute, and shift the burden of proof to the West, which has now the moral obligation to stabilize Ukraine and make it prosperous. Such is the price of Europe being geopolitically fluid again.

Regional Parties Cannot Be Ignored In Indian Polls – OpEd

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By Nilofar Suhrawardy

Political speculations and analyzes about the Indian electoral battle are mainly revolving around the prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) possible victory.

In all this hue and cry, the most important factor has somehow been overshadowed i.e. the role of regional parties in Indian elections and the formation of government.

It seems that there are only three forces in the political arena, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal. To some extent, we can say that these three have emerged as the face of this election but it is unlikely for any of these people or the parties they represent to form a government without the support of the regional parties.

The few states, where political battle is expected to be primarily between the Congress and the BJP are Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. In the Lok Sabha, 14 members represent Assam, Chhattisgarh (11), Gujarat (26), Haryana (10), Himachal Pradesh (4), Karnatka (28), Madhya Pradesh (29) and Rajashtan sends 25 members to the Lok Sabha.

Keeping in view these statistics, the Congress and the BJP will be the primary rivals in 137 constituencies.

The situation may change in states like Haryana, if the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) manages to take the lead. The same may be said about Assam, where regional parties’ representation may increase from three or be reduced to 2, 1 or even zero.

Though in the outgoing Lok Sabha, Congress is in the lead from Andhra Pradesh, the Telengana issue may enhance the importance of regional parties. At present, out of 42 members from Andhra Pradesh, around 11 are members of different regional parties.
Interestingly, states from where regional parties command 50 percent representation in Lok Sabha are Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and West Bengal.

Thus, in the outgoing Lok Sabha, 24 seats out of 40 from Bihar are held by regional parties, four out of six from J&K, 14 of 21 from Odisha, 30 of 39 from Tamil Nadu, 42 of 80 from UP and 22 of 42 from West Bengal.

The electoral battle on 228 seats from these states is least likely to be a key battle between Congress and the BJP. If in Bihar, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) is not pulverized by the Modi hype, the same can be said about regional parties in other states. In UP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) are key fighters, National Conference in J&K, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu while Trinamool Congress aims to extend its role beyond West Bengal following Lok Sabha polls.

As a matter of fact, all regional parties do not represent around 50 percent seats from their states in Lok Sabha. At the same time, their presence is not likely to be eliminated in the coming Lok Sabha. For instance, in the outgoing Lok Sabha 19 out of 48 members from Maharashtra are from regional parties.

Likewise, four of 13 from Punjab are from regional parties, six of 14 from Jharkhand and only three of 20 from Kerala are from regional parties. These states’ representation adds up to 95 in Lok Sabha.

Besides, there are more than a dozen states with one, two or less than 10 members in Lok Sabha, without strong regional parties.
Statistically speaking, however, strong Modimania can at most be expected to have a major impact in 137 constituencies. The possibility of regional parties retaining their position, strengthening or being only marginally affected in 228 plus seats cannot be ignored. The possibility of Modi phenomenon having an impact in states where regional parties do not have a strong presence cannot be ignored. Yet, while BJP may increase its presence from Punjab and even Jharkhand, prospects of it gaining in Kerala are negligible.

Contrary to expectations, regional parties’ ranking may increase in the next Lok Sabha. This also implies that key national parties, Congress and BJP, may become more dependent than they are at present on regional parties.

Email: nilofarsuhrawardy@hotmail.com

Côte d’Ivoire: Children Rescued From Trafficking And Exploitation

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In an operation against child trafficking and exploitation, law enforcement authorities in Côte d’Ivoire operating with INTERPOL support have rescued 76 children believed to have been trafficked across West Africa for the purposes of illegal child labour.

Some 170 Ivorian law enforcement officers participated in Operation Nawa (6-17 February) in which gendarmes, police and forestry agents targeted cacao fields and illegal gold mines in five areas across the Soubré region. With the majority of the suspected child trafficking victims believed to originate from Burkina Faso and Mali, the operation led to the arrest and sentencing of eight traffickers – five men and three women.

Operation Nawa is the first of a series of planned INTERPOL transnational child trafficking operations focusing on the serious abuse of children subjected to slave-like conditions. Officers from INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Abidjan coordinated the operation, which also involved INTERPOL’s Regional Bureau in Abidjan and specialist officers from INTERPOL’s Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation (HTCE) unit at its General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France.

The Head of INTERPOL’s NCB in Abidjan, Alain Angui Eboi, underlined ’the importance of concerted regional efforts via INTERPOL to get rid of traffickers’ and through initiatives such as Operation Nawa raise local and national awareness of illegal child labour. He called on regional bodies to support region-wide coordinated efforts.

With the operation divided into four phases – preparatory meeting, inspection of terrain, capacity building and operation, INTERPOL Executive Director of Police Services Jean-Michel Louboutin said: “Information gathered during Operation Nawa will help further identify and dismantle the criminal networks behind child trafficking and forced labour nationally and regionally. The operation highlights the need for law enforcement to collaborate at national, regional and international levels against such crimes.”

The rescued children were taken into care following the operation which received support from Côte d’Ivoire’s health, immigration and social affairs ministries, in addition to social workers and Dutch NGO KidsRights.

“Operation Nawa shows what can be achieved by coordinating resources and we would especially welcome input from industries who want to help remove child labour from their supply chains,” said Michael Moran, the Head of INTERPOL’s Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation (HTCE) unit.

”Police on the frontlines play a very important role in enforcing laws on human trafficking and forced labour. We need to get in there to support frontline officers in the region and give trafficked children a chance at education, a chance to live,” added Mr Moran

Follow-up action includes the development of best practices for HTCE operations in West Africa and the development of a regional West African programme and capacity building based on Operation Nawa.

New Global Coalition On Surveillance

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World leaders should make a commitment to keep invasive surveillance systems and technologies out of the hands of dictators and oppressive regimes, a new global coalition of human rights organizations said today as it announced its formation in Brussels.

The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) aims to hold governments and private companies accountable for abuses linked to the US$5 billion and growing international trade in communication surveillance technologies. Governments are increasingly using spying software, equipment, and related tools to violate the right to privacy and a host of other human rights.

“These technologies enable regimes to crush dissent or criticism, chill free speech and destroy fundamental rights,” said Ara Marcen Naval, advocacy coordinator at Amnesty International. “The CAUSE coalition has documented cases where communication surveillance technologies have been used, not only to spy on people’s private lives, but also to assist governments to imprison and torture their critics.”

The CAUSE coalition already has a global reach and will continue to expand. CAUSE is currently led by the following international groups: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Privacy International, and Reporters Without Borders, together with leading national groups Digitale Gesellschaft in Germany, and the Open Technology Institute in the United States.

“Through a growing body of evidence it’s clear to see how widely these surveillance technologies are used by repressive regimes to ride roughshod over individuals’ rights,” said Kenneth Page, Policy Officer at Privacy International. “The unchecked development, sale and export of these technologies is not justifiable. Governments must swiftly take action to prevent these technologies spreading into dangerous hands.” In an open letter published on April 4, 2014 on the CAUSE website, the groups express alarm at the virtually unregulated global trade in communications surveillance equipment.

The website details the various communication surveillance technologies that have been made and supplied by private companies and also highlights the countries where these companies are based. It shows these technologies have been found in a range of countries such as Bahrain, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, Morocco, Turkmenistan, UAE, and many more.

“Nobody is immune to the danger communication surveillance technologies poses to individual privacy and a host of other human rights,” said Karim Lahidji, president at FIDH.  “And those who watch today, will be watched tomorrow. The CAUSE has been created to call for responsible regulation of the trade and to put an end to the abuses it enables.”

Although a number of governments are beginning to discuss how to restrict this trade, concerns remain. Without sustained international pressure on governments to establish robust comprehensive controls on the trade based on international human rights standards, the burgeoning proliferation of this intrusive technology will continue – fuelling even further abuses, the coalition said.

“More and more journalists, netizens and dissidents are ending up in prison after their online communications are intercepted,” said Grégoire Pouget, head of new media at Reporters Without Borders. “The adoption of a legal framework that protects online freedoms is essential, both as regards the overall issue of Internet surveillance and the particular problem of firms that export surveillance products.”

The technologies include malware that allows surreptitious data extraction from personal devices; tools  to intercept telecommunications traffic; spygear to locate mobile phones; monitoring centers that allow authorities to track entire populations; anonymous listening and camera spying on computers and mobile phones; and devices used to tap undersea fiber-optic cables to enable mass internet monitoring and filtering.

“As members of the CAUSE coalition, we’re calling on governments to take immediate action to stop the proliferation of this dangerous technology and ensure the trade is effectively controlled and made fully transparent and accountable,” said Volker Tripp, advocacy manager at Digitale Gesellschaft.

The organizations participating in CAUSE have researched how such technologies end up in the hands of security agencies with appalling human rights records, where they enable security agents to arbitrarily target journalists, protesters, independent groups, political opponents and others.

Cases documented by coalition members have included:

  • German surveillance technology being used to assist torture in Bahrain;
  • Malware made in Italy helping the Moroccan and UAE authorities to clamp down on free speech and imprison critics;
  • European companies exporting surveillance software to the government of Turkmenistan, a country notorious for violent repression of dissent; and
  • Surveillance technologies used internally in Ethiopia as well as to target the Ethiopian diaspora in Europe and the United States.

The right to privacy is enshrined in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“We have seen the devastating impact these technologies have on the lives of individuals and the functioning of independent groups,” said Wenzel Michalski, Germany director at Human Rights Watch. “Inaction will further embolden blatantly irresponsible surveillance traders and security agencies, thus normalizing arbitrary state surveillance. We urge governments to come together and take responsible action quickly.”


Kárpátalja: Europe’s Next Crimea? – Analysis

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By John R. Haines

“Hungarians and Rumanians, Germans and Poles,
Know the history of territory stolen.” –Brigade M[1]
Europese Eenheid (“European Unity”)

Crimea’s secession and subsequent annexation begs many questions. An overlooked but important one is: Will the next “Crimea” occur inside NATO and the European Union? If so, an interesting candidate is Kárpátalja, a region in which some 162,000 ethnic Hungarians[2] live along Ukraine’s western frontier with Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

KINSMEN IN THE NEAR-ABROAD

On 18 March, Vladimir Putin affirmed that Russians:

“…expected Ukraine to remain our good neighbor. We hoped that Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine, especially its southeast and Crimea, would live in a friendly, democratic and civilized state that would protect their rights in line with the norms of international law. However, this is not how the situation developed. Time and time again, attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation.”[3]

The Soviet Union’s dissolution transformed 25 million ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation into the new Russian diaspora[4] and posed a challenge to new states throughout Russia’s near-abroad.[5] Emerging in its aftermath, Russian nationalists like Nashi[6] (“Ours”) claimed the land “our people” live on should be “ours.”  Other voices including Den (“The Day”) went so far as to advocate Russian military intervention to “defend” Russian speakers.

Conflicts between national loyalties on the one hand, and mutually exclusive identities on the other, are not new.  Amidst the 18th century emergence of Malorossiya or “Little Russia” identity, some argued multiple loyalties and identities had to be replaced by mutually-exclusive ones: “[O]ne could not be a Russian from Little Russia…one had to be either a Russian or a Ukrainian.”[7] As the sociologist Max Weber saw it, a “community of memories” often has “deeper impact than the ties of merely cultural, linguistic or ethnic community” and is “the ultimately decisive element of ‘national consciousness’.”[8]

In Hungary, a community of memories[9] has thrived for decades. It “lost” more than three-fifths of its population and two-thirds of its territory under the Treaty of Trianon signed with the Entente in 1920.  Efforts to revise Trianon—and with it, the map of Europe—“became the alpha and omega of interwar Hungarian politics.”[10] Campaigns against Trianon opened a Pandora’s box in the late 1930s and early 1940s, however, when “public opinion induced the government to take diplomatic and military steps which it would have preferred to avoid.”[11] The rest, as they say, is history.

Ethnic conflicts in the form of secessionist or irredentist struggles tend to internationalize when fomented by restorationist[12] states, of which Russia and Hungary are paradigmatic examples.  Ethnic communities that self-identify with multiple cultures—for example, Russian Ukrainians who do so with both Russian and Ukrainian culture, or Transcarpathian Hungarians with Hungarian and Ukrainian culture—sometimes avoid assimilation-versus-emigration or self-isolation dilemmas.[13] Against this, however, Russia and Hungary[14] exert a powerful nationalist counterforce in their respective near-abroad. Their political intent is to weaken the identification of ethnic Russians and Hungarians with (and presumably, their loyalty to) Ukraine. They exploit two instruments: first, the ethnic pull to self-identify with Russians in Russia, or Hungarians in Hungary; and second, the national pull to identify with the Russian or the Hungarian state as one’s own political community.  The perception of this identity-and-loyalty tradeoff by Ukrainian nationalists (not unreasonable, it might be argued, given recent events) is that the nationalpull from Russia and Hungary attenuates Ukrainian national pull, leading ineluctably to a cycle of secession and annexation à la Crimea.[15] Thus the argument goes, the more a Russian Ukrainian in the Luhansk oblast comes to self-identify with Russians in Russia,[16] or a Transcarpathian Hungarian in Beregszász does so with Hungarians in Hungary, the more likely she is to see herself as a Russian in Ukraine or a Hungarian in Ukraine, attenuating loyalty to the Ukrainian state.

DREAMS OF KÁRPÁTALJA[17]

Noted historian Krisztián Ungváry claims Hungarians living in different countries judge questions of language in the same way and share historical memories.[18] Transcarpathia’s turbulent modern history begins with the territory’s 1920 incorporation as Subcarpathian Rus into the newly established state of Czechoslovakia. Subcarpathian Rus achieved its long-promised regional autonomy in 1938 as Carpatho-Ukraine when Germany pressured Czechoslovakia to change to a federal system. Hungary promptly occupied predominantly ethnic Hungarian southwestern Carpatho-Ukraine, officially referring to it as Subcarpathia (Hungarian: Kárpátalja) or Northeastern Upper Hungary. When Carpatho-Ukraine declared independence in March 1939, Hungary occupied the balance of its territory until ousted by the Red Army in October 1944.  For a period of about a year, Transcarpathian Ukraine functioned as a self-governing entity until it was formally relinquished by Czechoslovakia in June 1945 under pressure from the Soviet Union, which annexed it in January 1946 and declared it part of Soviet Ukraine.[19]

Today, Ukraine’s Transcarpathian Region (Ukrainian transliteration: Zakarpatts’ka Oblast’) is a multi-ethnic region on the western border with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. It is called variably Carpathian Rus (Ukrainian transl.: Karpats’ka Rus’), Transcarpathian Rus (Ukrainian transl.: Zakarpats’ka Rus’), and Subcarpathian Rus (Ukrainian transl.: Pidkarpats’ka Rus’).  These variants reflect one’s geographic perspective: for Hungarians (and Slovaks and Czechs), the region is below the Carpathian Mountains or Sub-Carpathia; for Ukrainians, it is on the other side of the Carpathians or Trans-Carpathia.  The term Rus refers to Rusyns, an eastern Slav ethnic subgroup of Ruthenian speakers.  While Rusyny sometimes refer to themselves and to their language as Rusnak or Lemko, the ethnonym Ukrainian was officially applied to all Transcarpathian Rusyns after the territory’s 1946 annexation.[20]

The 1989 Soviet census identified three-quarters of residents as East Slavs (Ukrainians and Rusyns), followed by ethnic Hungarians (12.5%) and smaller populations of ethnic Russians, Romanians, Roma, Slovaks, Germans, Jews, and Belarusians.  Ethnic Hungarians reside in all 22 districts or raion although the 1989 census reported them in only 11 districts, mostly in the southwestern lowlands bordering Hungary and Slovakia.  The largest concentration is in the Berehove Raion (Hungarian: Beregszászi járás), which accounts for some one-third of all Transcarpathian Hungarians.  Other large concentrations are found in the Uzhhorod Raion (Hungarian: Ungvári Járás), the Mukachivskyi Raion (Hungarian: Munkácsi Járás), and the Vynohradiv Raion (Hungarian: Nagyszőlősi Jaras), all on Ukraine’s western frontier with Hungary.

A LANGUAGE WITH AN ARMY?[21]

Language is a potent animating force today across the European subcontinent.  The distinguished linguist Einar Haugen observed:

“Nation and language have become inextricably intertwined… In a society that is essentially familial or tribal or regional, [language] stimulates a loyalty beyond the primary group but discourages conflicting loyalty to other nations… Nationalism has tended to encourage external distinction…In language, this has meant the urge not only to have one language, but to have one’s own language. This automatically secludes the population from other populations, who might otherwise undermine its loyalty.  Here, the urge for separatism has come into sharp conflict with the urge for international contact.”[22]

Kárpátalja epitomizes Haugen’s observation about seclusion: Transcarpathian Hungarians are Ukraine’s “least integrated (assimilated) minority.”[23] Three-quarters live within 20km of the Hungarian frontier, concentrated (>92%) in 124 of the region’s 609 towns and villages. Nearly all (95.4%) “think that their mother tongue is the language of their nationality.”[24]

Hungary’s Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (“Movement for a Better Hungary”) is a far-right nationalist party.  Jobbik leaders see Hungarian, in a manner of speaking, as “a language with an army.” Consider the following statement posted 4 February on the official Jobbik website:

“A Jobbik most különösen fontosnak tartja, hogy a leghatározottabb nemzeti érdekérvényesítésre szorítsa rá a Fideszt, mivel az ukrán válság könnyen teremthet olyan történelmi lehetőséget, amely megnyugtatóan és akár véglegesen is rendezheti a kárpátaljai magyarság helyzetét.”[25]

Which reads in English:

“Jobbik attaches particular importance to unifying behind a robust assertion of Hungarian national interests given that the crisis in Ukraine has created an historic opportunity to resolve finally the situation of Transcarpathian Hungarians.” [author’s translation]

It proceeds to lambaste the Fideszt-led Hungarian government’s signing of the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, calling it “an overt act of treason.”

Jobbik’s political currency is not necessarily the grammatical corruption of language—about which, Orwell wrote, “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity…[w]hen there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims…”.[26] Rather, it is Language, as in Tucholsky’s aphorism, “Language is a weapon.  Keep it honed.”[27] Say what one might, Jobbik-speak about Kárpátalja is sincere and most carefully honed. It does invite suspicion that underlying the Transcarpathia (and elsewhere) gravamen is thinly veiled ethnos identity-politics, not demos politics based on universal territorial citizenship.[28] And taking care to use diplomatic, Europhilic words, the governing Fideszt reveals its own “Jobbik-lite” sentiment:

“A stabil, demokratikus és egységes Ukrajnában, valamint a kárpátaljai magyarság jogbiztonságában közvetlenül is érdekelt szomszédos országként fontosnak tartjuk, hogy az Európai Unió aktívan működjön közre az ország politikai és gazdasági válságának hosszú távú megoldásának előmozdítása érdekében.”[29]

“What is important is a stable, democratic and unified Ukraine, and the legal status of Transcarpathian Hungarians. Hungary and the European Union have a direct interest in actively cooperating to promote a long-term solution to Ukraine’s political and economic crisis, given our shared border.”  [author’s translation]

Speaking after a 27 March NATO meeting, Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende said, “The life of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia is the most important measuring device for Hungarian-Ukraine relations,” referring to the Ukrainian parliament’s repeal[30] (vetoed by Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov) of a 2012 language law allowing the use in courts and certain government functions of so-called “regional languages”— including Russian, Hungarian, Romanian and Tatar—in districts where such speakers constituted at least 10 percent of the population.[31]

Hende echoed comments by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a day earlier calling the safety of ethnic Hungarians in the Transcarpathian region Hungary’s most important priority in connection with the Ukrainian crisis.  Orban earlier met László Brenzovics, deputy president of the Hungarian Cultural Federation in Transcarpathia (Hungarian: Kárpátaljai Magyar Kulturális Szövetség or “KMKSZ”).  Brenzovics is also deputy leader of the Transcarpathian local council, which earlier signed a “memorandum of national unity” promoted by the Donetsk oblast calling for decentralization of power in Ukraine. A few days earlier, Orban demanded a “flawless” minority policy in Ukraine, condemning as “not only mistaken, but illegitimate and unlawful”[32] efforts to repeal the 2012 language law.

Jobbik has capitalized on events in Ukraine with alacrity. Jobbik MP Tamás Gaudi-Nagy organized a 29 March demonstration for Transcarpathian autonomy and separation from Ukraine, held in front of the Hungarian foreign ministry in Budapest. Demanding the “freedom of Transcarpathia, annexed illegally by Ukraine,” its goals according to Gaudi-Nagy were:

“[T]o support the sovereignty demands of our Hungarian and Rusyn brothers and sisters in Transcarpathia and also the other ethnic groups of Ukraine including the Polish, the Russian and the Romanian minorities.  And secondly to urge the Hungarian government to stand up for minority rights in Ukraine.  We condemn the government’s cowardly and submissive policy in these critical times.”[33]

Jobbik found common cause with other European nationalists: on 2 February, Jobbik MPs Szávay István, chairman of its national policy cabinet, and Gyöngyösi Márton, chairman of its foreign policy cabinet, issued a joint statement with leaders of Poland’s Partii Ruch Narodowy (“National Democratic Party”) demanding “self-governance for the indigenous Polish and Hungarian people living in the Ukraine.”

“TALPRA MAGYAR, HÍ A HAZA!”[34] AND TRIANON-NEUROSIS[35]

Historian Jeremy Black writes that grievances,

“[A]re a characteristic of post-Cold War history, as various ‘liberated’ peoples have adopted historical claims in the service of their political goals… The common theme in the search for an exemplary historical identity is that of past adversity: an existential threat rising to a peak in a crisis that demonstrates the mettle of national character and thus acts as a rallying point for the present and the future.  This approach flattens the rest of the historical landscape or treats it with reference solely to the crisis. [36]

Jobbik grievance history is the complex problem for which the label Trianon—“A Hungarian Tragedy,”[37] “the dismemberment of Hungary”[38]— serves as shorthand and provides in Black’s phrase, “a language of unity against outsiders.”  Consider the words of Jobbik’s Gábor Vona:

“What happened in the Trianon Palace in Versailles after the First World War was that the enemies of Hungary dictated the fate of our country on the basis of lies, manipulated figures, and false reports.”[39]

Claiming hostility toward Hungarian minorities “is all too common in Slovakia, Romania, Serbia or the Ukraine,” he continued:

“One thing is common in all of these countries: the will of the national government to assimilate forcefully the Hungarian ethnic minorities living there. It is just the means and the intensity that varies.”[40]

Asked about reunifying territories in neighboring states populated by ethnic Hungarians, Vona replied:

“For this to occur, Hungary would first need leadership that serves the national interests. That is a condicio sine qua non for Hungary’s spiritual resurrection.”[41]

This and the common Jobbik refrain we are of one blood[42] ring, rather chillingly, of Volksgenosse.[43]

Many apply the overused Sudetenland trope to Crimea, but in manner too careless to be informative in any meaningful way. Memel, the German name for the Lithuanian Baltic port city of Klaipėda, is perhaps more illuminating.[44] Hitler said in his Theaterplatz address on 22 March 1939, one day after Lithuania relinquished the city it had annexed in 1923:

“You had been left in the lurch at one time by a Germany that surrendered to disgrace and ignominy. Now, however, you have returned into a might new Germany that again knows the unshakable conceptions of honor, that does not want to and will not entrust its fate to strangers, but that is ready and determined to master its own fate and to give it form even if another world does not like it…Just as you were the sufferers from German impotence and disunion, so also were other Germans…Twenty years of suffering and misery should be a warning to us and a lesson for all future times….”.[45]

Consider, then, how history rhymed almost 75 years later to the day:

“Now, many years later, I heard residents of Crimea say that back in 1991 they were handed over like a sack of potatoes. This is hard to disagree with. And what about the Russian state?  What about Russia?  It humbly accepted the situation. This country was going through such hard times then that realistically it was incapable of protecting its interests.  However, the people could not reconcile themselves to this outrageous historical injustice.  All these years, citizens and many public figures came back to this issue, saying that Crimea is historically Russian land and Sevastopol is a Russian city.”[46]

“CRIMEA MEANS A CHANCE FOR HUNGARIANS AS WELL”[47]

Hungarians “should welcome Russia’s gaining ground” against the West, according to Jobbik deputy leader Márton Gyöngyösi, and “look upon Russia as an example of enforcing one’s own interests.” Hungary “should make alliances with all the countries that have ethnic minorities in Ukraine,” adding that in the current circumstances, “Russia could be our ally.”

Gyöngyösi continued, “Crimea gives a better chance for the Lower Carpathians to gain regional autonomy as well.  This is what the Hungarian foreign ministry should be fighting for, but we are quite aware that they do not set such goals.”  Budapest should “learn from Moscow, he continued, adding that when:

“[T]he forces that had overthrown Viktor Yanukovich with Western assistance came into power, they immediately began voicing chauvinistic, anti-Russian, anti-minority and anti-Hungarian opinions.  No wonder Russia intervened in order to protect the Russian-speaking community.”[48]

Mitchell Ornstein writes insightfully of Putin’s ties with right-wing parties across Europe including notably, Jobbik.[49] Ornstein notes Vona’s May 2013 trip to Moscow, which Jobbik characterized as “a major breakthrough as it became clear that Russian leaders consider Jobbik as a partner.”[50] Jobbik’s report goes on to quote approvingly Vona’s reference to “America as the deformed offspring of Europe, and the EU as the traitor of our continent.”

Commenting on the Hungarian parliament’s recent approval of a plan to construct two new Russian-financed reactors at the country’s only nuclear plant in Paks—which, if completed, would supply some 40 percent of Hungary’s energy needs, Russian oil and gas accounting for nearly all of the remainder—Walter Russell Mead writes:

“There are notable parallels between the situation now arising in Hungary and the drama that unfolded in Ukraine.  In both cases, Putin displayed his ability to use economic diplomacy to extend his sway across former Soviet republics.  In both cases, Western diplomats failed to detect—or appear to be failing to detect—the gathering storm…”[51]

While Mead writes, “There is nothing in the Hungarian case that should necessarily cause a crisis as bitter and as bloody as the one currently raging in Ukraine,” others note “[t]here is little doubt that Hungary does not have any interest served by nationalistically loaded, provocative policies.  Still, the Fidesz government is pursuing precisely such policies.”[52] Case in point, on 1 March in the western Ukraine border city of Uzhorod (for Hungarians, Ungvár), Hungarian Foreign Minister János Martonyi warned, “Transcarpathia’s troubled ethnic Hungarian minority has to face new dangers but Hungary will not leave any insult at them unanswered.“[53][sic]

While Russia no doubt fuels atavistic visions in Hungary of reuniting “the Mutilated Motherland,”[54] and reclaiming Kárpátalja territories lost long ago, Russian interests end at sowing political chaos in Ukraine. For Hungarians to succumb to “historic moment” blandishments would be to play “a game of Russian roulette where the player is offered a revolver with all chambers loaded.”[55] At the same time, the position of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine might well become more precarious if Hungary’s longstanding claims are newly reinterpreted by Ukrainians as a preparatory stage to secession.

Some Western leaders have suggested muscular responses to Russia redivivus including enhanced forward missile defenses.[56] Political exigencies notwithstanding, these fulminations betray a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of the regional contest now afoot. The non sequitur seems as obvious and it is inescapable: the illogic of ordnance to counter an asymmetric, intangible force—Language.

To paraphrase Andrei Zubov on Vladimir Putin, we always make prognoses based on the assumption that politicians, even if selfish and cruel, are intelligent and rational.[57] Kárpátalja may be ample cause for Western policymakers to take care to reconsider that assumption.

About the author:
John Haines is a Senior Fellow and Trustee of FPRI, and Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee. He is also a private investor and entrepreneur.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI and may be accessed here.

References:
[1] Brigade M is a Dutch neo-fascist punk band whose discography includes the album Dutch-Hungarian Brotherhood recorded with the Hungarian RAC (“Rock Against Communism”) band Fehér Törvény.  The latter has been described admiringly as “Hungarian patriot nationalist skinhead”.  The album’s  feature song is “Maak kapot wat jou kapot maakt” (“Destroy what destroys you”).

[2] Transcarpathian Hungarians account for 92% of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine.  Mihály Tóth (2012). “Hungarian National Minority of Ukraine: Legal and Practical Aspects of Realisation of Minority Rights.” Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Legal Studies. 1:1, p. 143.

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/transcript-putin-says-russia-will-protect-the-rights-of-russians-abroad/2014/03/18/432a1e60-ae99-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html Last accessed 30 March 2014.

[4] Pål Kolstø (1995). “The New Russian Diaspora: Minority Protection in the Soviet Successor States.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 30:2, p. 82.

[5] Steven Shulman (2007). “Competing versus complementary identities: Ukrainian-Russian relations and the loyalties of Russians in Ukraine.” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity. 26:4, p. 615.

[6] Boris Yeltsin was not above exploiting it at the time as a nationalist rallying cry, as in Kurily nashi! (“The Kurils are ours!”).

[7] Robert Paul Magocsi (1989). “The Ukraininan National Revival: A New Analytical Framework.” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism. 16:1-2, p. 51.  Such chauvinism is not uniquely Russian by any means: the unnamed writer of a 1993 article in the Lviv nationalist newspaper Za vilnu Ukrainu (“For a Free Ukraine”) asserted many Ukrainians were “infected” with a Russian mentality by means of living in a “foreign-national”(chuzhonatsionalne) environment, and so identified themselves with Russia and Russians instead of Ukraine and Ukrainians. “Navishcho potribna derusifikatsiia Ukrainy.” Za vilnu Ukrainu. 65: 1993.

[8] Max Weber (1978). Economy and Society. Edited by Guether Roth & Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press.

[9] Or more pejoratively, “collective memory of motherland mutilation.” Eric Beckett Weaver (2006). National Narcissism: The intersection of the nationalist cult and gender in Hungary. Oxford: Peter Lang, p. 80.

[10] Robert Nemes (2010). The American Historical Review. 115:2, pp. 637-638.  This theme appears repeatedly in Hungarian discussions of Trianon: “The existence of Hungarian minorities is a result of the 1920 Trianon Treaty and the ‘mutilation” of the nation’.”  Gábor Egry (2010). “Why Identity Matters. Hungary’s New Law on Citizenship and the Reorganization of an Organic Nation.” http://eudo-citizenship.eu/commentaries/citizenship-forum/citizenship-forum-cat/322-dual-citizenship-for-transborder-minorities-how-to-respond-to-the-hungarian-slovak-tit-for-tat?showall=&start=7 Last accessed 3 April 2014. The “artificial borderline created by the Peace Treaty of Trianon…was the most painful for the mutilated mother country.”  P. 2. István Balcsók, László Dancs & Gábor Koncz (2002). “The Development of Hungarian-Romanian Cross- Border Connections After the Change of Regime.” http://www-sre.wu-wien.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa05/papers/301.pdf  Last accessed 4 April 2014.  Hungary was a “revered body…torn asunder and ravaged by barbarians.”  Eva Huseby-Darvas, “‘Feminism, the Murderer of Mothers’: Neo-Natalist Reconstruction of Gender in Hungary.” Paper presented at the 1991 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, pp. 3–4.

[11] Miklós Zeidler (2007). Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary 1920–1945. Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld, & Helen DeKornfeld. (CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, number 15.). Wayne, N.J.: Center for Hungarian Studies and Publications, p. 122.

[12] The term is from Veljko Vujačić (1996). “Historical legacies, mationalist mobilization, and political outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian view.” Theory and Society. 26:6, p. 764.

[13] This observation is  based on an argument in Iu͡ G. Morozov (1994). “Russkie Ukraintsi—nositeli dvukh iazykovykh kul’tur—Russkoi i Ukrainskoi.” Vidrodzhennia. 1, p. 7.

[14] Or for that matter, any nation: the rule generalizes easily.

[15] The author credits the discussion of this subject by Shulman (2007), pp. 624-625.

[16] A good illustration is “Ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s Luhansk also want closer ties with Moscow.” Kyiv Post [online edition]. 17 March 2014. https://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ethnic-russians-in-ukraines-luhansk-also-want-closer-ties-with-moscow-339683.html  Last accessed 2 April 2014

[17] “Imagining their lands as ours” is how Yoshioka characterizes renaming place names in another language.  For example, in postwar Poland, the “de-Germanisation” and “re-Polonisation” of place names was used to give “proof for the Polishness of ex-German territories” [p. 274], a process that pressed “in-between ethnic groups of Polish-German borderland…to clarify their ambiguous national consciousness” [p. 286]. Yoshioka (2008). “Imagining Their Lands as Ours: Place Name Changes on Ex-German Territories in Poland after World War II.” Acta Slavica Iaponica. 15, pp. 273-287. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no15_ses/14_yoshioka.pdf  Last accessed 4 April 2014.

[18] Krisztián Ungváry (2010). “Trianon no comprehended.” Élet és Irodalom. 44:49. English version at http://www.imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de/fileadmin/imre-kertesz-kolleg/Portal/Laczo_Ferenc__Trianon_debate/Ungvary__Krisztian_Trianon_not_comprehended_Elet_es_Irodalom_10.12.2010.pdf Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[19] The author relied in part on Károly Kocsis & Eszter Kocsis-Hodosi (1995). Ethnic Geography of the Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin. Toronto: Matthias Corvinus Publishing, pp. 7-10.

[20] On 7 March 2007, the Zakarpatts’ka Oblast regional council or rada voted to recognize Rusyn nationality.  The Ukraine government considers Rusyn a dialect of Ukrainian, and does not officially recognize Rusyny as a separate ethno-linguistic group nor tabulate them separately for census purposes.  Source: http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/linguistic-geography/rusyn-issue-zakarpattia-transcarpathia#ixzz2xSzr6vBl Last accessed 30 March 2014.

[21] Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich (1945) famously quipped that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy”(“a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot“).  Quoted in “Der yivo un di problemen fun undzer tsayt” (“’Yivo’ and the problems of our time”). Yivo-bleter. 25:1, p. 13.

[22] Einar Haugen (1986). “Dialect, Language, Nation.” American Anthropologist. 68:4, pp. 922-935.

[23] Tóth (2012), p. 143.

[24] Ibid., pp. 144-145.

[25] “Történelmi lehetőséget teremthet az ukrán válság” [“The crisis in Ukraine may create an historic opportunity.”].  4 February 2014.  http://www.jobbik.hu/hireink/tortenelmi-lehetoseget-teremthet-az-ukran-valsag Last accessed 29 March 2014.  This statements appeared under the byline, “Szávay István országgyűlési képviselő, a Jobbik Nemzetpolitikai Kabinet elnöke” (“Stephen Szavay MP, Chair of the Jobbik national policy committee”).  Fideszt  is Hungary’s governing political party, the full name of which is Fideszt–Magyar Polgári Szövetség, or “Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Alliance.

[26] George Orwell (1946).  “Politics and the English Language.” http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[27] Kurt Tucholsky was an important German journalist and author of the Weimar period.  His words read in the original German, “Sprache ist eine Waffe– haltet sie scharf.” The translation is the author’s.

[28] The author’s use of ethnos and demos references John Nagle (1997). “Ethnos, Demos and Democratization: A Comparison of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.” Democratization. 4:2, pp. 28-56.  Nagle further distinguishes what he argues the West considers ‘bad ethnos-politics’ in which “not just ethnic nationalism but anti-Western ethnic nationalism seems to be the key variable.”  Nagle, p. 53.

[29] “A Külügyminisztérium az ukrajnai válság békés megoldását sürgeti.[”Hungarian State Department urges a peaceful solution to the crisis in Ukraine”]. 19 February 2014.  [http://www.kormany.hu/hu/kulugyminiszterium/hirek/a-kulugyminiszterium-az-ukrajnai-valsag-bekes-megoldasat-surgeti Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[30] Ukraine Party of Regions first deputy Mykhailo Chechetov asserted, “In our country, 46 million understand two languages— Russian and Ukrainian. Not Bulgarian, not Hungarian, not Romanian, not Jewish— Yiddish or Hebrew or whatever you say.  Only a handful of people understand those languages.  We’re talking about two languages here that the whole nation understands.”  See: Oles Oleksiyenko (2012). “The Only Regional Language.” The Ukrainian Week. 14:37, p. 4. http://img.tyzhden.ua/Content/Digest/week/august/digest14/Book14.pdf  Last accessed 1 April 2014.  The article’s subtitle is “Recent developments signal that the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov language law is aimed at the renewed Russification of all Ukrainians regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.

[31] The 2012 law was controversial in part because 13 of 27 regional councils, located mostly in the eastern Ukraine, quickly adopted Russian as a second official language.  The action to repeal the law was condemned by, among others, Konstantin Dolgov, Russian Foreign Ministry Representative for Human Rights, as an “attack on the Russian language in Ukraine” and a “brutal violation of ethnic minority rights.”

[32] “Orbán: “Flawless” minority policy a must for Ukraine.” 21 March 2014. http://www.politics.hu/20140321/orban-flawless-minority-policy-a-must-for-ukraine/ Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[33] Gaudi-Nagy’s statement is posted on his website, http://gaudinagytamas.hu Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[34] From Sándor Petőfi’s famous poem, “Talpra magyar, hí a haza!” (Rise Hungarian, the Fatherland calls!).

[35] Éva Kovács coined the term “Trianon-neurosis” in her 2011 essay, “Causality is a stubborn thing,” published in the Hungarian left-liberal weekly Élet és Irodalom.

[36] Jeremy Black (2011). “The rise of grievance history.” History Today. 61:12. http://www.historytoday.com/jeremy-black/rise-grievance-history Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[37] A search for the term “Trianon” on the website of The American Hungarian Federation returns “The Treaty of Trianon: A Hungarian Tragedy – June 4, 1920.” http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/news_trianon.htm Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[38] From the website hunsor.se, the self-described intent of which is to “increase the public knowledge about Hungarians and Hungarian minorities in the Carpathian Basin..”  http://www.hunsor.se/trianon/treatyoftrianon1920.htm Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[39] The quotes reflect the author’s translation from the original German in which the interview was published. Zur Zeit. „Tragödie für Europa als Ganzes.“ Nr. 24/2010 (18.–24. Juni 2010).  http://zurzeit.at/index.php?id=1011 Last accessed 31 March 2014.  Zur Zeit is an Austrian weekly associated with the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (“Freedom Party of Austria”), a right-wing populist political party once led by the late Jörg Haider.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] The literal translation is “of the blood” (vérből).

[43] “German kindred blood,” a commonly-used Nazi conceptualization. [author’s translation]

[44] The author credits Andrei Zubov (2014), who wrote, “И совсем иное говорил Адольф Гитлер 23 марта 1939 г. с балкона на Театральной площади только что присоединенного Мемеля.” [author’s translation: “It was quite another Adolf Hitler who spoke on 23 March 1939 from a balcony overlooking Memel’s Theater Square.”]

. See: http://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/news/23467291/andrej-zubov-eto-uzhe-bylo  Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[45] “Hitler’s Speech at Memel.” The New York Times. 23 March 1939. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F0081FFB3858127A93C6AB1788D85F4D8385F9 Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[46] Vladimir Putin (2014). “Address by the President of the Russian Federation” [in English]. 18 March 2014. http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6889 Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[47] Attributed on the official Jobbik website to its deputy parliamentary leader Márton Gyöngyösi, who also is deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament.  http://www.jobbik.com/index_gyöngyösi_crimea_means_chance_hungarians_well  Last accessed 2 April 2014

[48] Ibid.

[49] Ornstein (2014). “Putin’s Western Allies: Why Europe’s Far Right Is on the Kremlin’s Side.” Foreign Affairs. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3138720/posts  Last accessed 2 April 2014

[50] http://www.jobbik.com/gábor_vona_had_lecture_lomonosov_university_russia  Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[51] Walter Russell Mead (2014). “Hungary, Ukraine & Putin’s Invisible Curtain.” The American Interest [online edition].  http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/02/11/hungary-ukraine-putins-invisible-curtain/  Last accessed 2 April 2014.

[52] Attila Ara-Kovács & Bálint Magyar (2014). “Can we learn from history?” Hungarian spectrum [online edition]. http://hungarianspectrum.wordpress.com/2014/04/

[53] “Hungary to react to all insults.” The Budapest Times [online edition]. 9 March 2014.  http://budapesttimes.hu/2014/03/09/hungary-to-react-to-all-insults/  Last accessed 4 April 2014.

[54] Richard S. Esbenshade (2004). Hungary. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Benchmary, p. 10.  See also fn(9).

[55] Ibid.

[56] See for example, “GOP senators back Bush-era missile defense system to punish Putin.” Washington Times. 30 March 2014. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/30/gop-senators-back-restoration-of-bush-era-missile-/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS Last accessed 1 April 2014.  Similarly, former US ambassador to the UN (2007-2009) Zalmay Khalilzad wrote, “[T]he United States should…increase support to regional allies (including the restoration of American missile defense commitments and the movement of NATO forces into Eastern Europe), provide military assistance to the Ukrainian government, and arm forces willing to resist a Russian occupation of Eastern Ukraine.” In “Stand Up to Russia Now.” New York Times. 25 March 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/stand-up-to-russia-now.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0 Last accessed 1 April 2014.

[57] Zubov (2014) op cit.

Taiwan’s Sunflower Protests Explained – Analysis

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By Zachary Fillingham

It’s a headline that shocks: Students occupy the national legislature, issue an ultimatum to the ruling government. And for a little while the local Taiwanese media ran with this sense of shock, portraying the occupying students as a motley and misguided crew of beer-swigging firebrands. But it’s clear to anyone present that this initial act of civil disobedience has blossomed into a wider political movement, complete with its very own sentimental branding.

This is Taiwan’s Sunflower Revolution – at least that’s what the protesters will tell you.

It all began in the early hours of March 18, when roughly 250 students stormed the Legislative Yuan in central Taipei. They were quickly joined by 1,000 other students, and since then the number of supporters surrounding the building has grown to over ten thousand, with many staying through the night despite unseasonably cold weather and bouts of torrential rain.

The demands of the main student group in the legislature are simple. They want Taiwan to pull out of a cross-strait service pact that was signed in July of last year; the establishment of an oversight mechanism to monitor future cross-strait negotiations; and for President Ma Ying-jeou to personally respond to their demands.

The free trade pact in question would reduce trade barriers between China and Taiwan in a variety of service sectors, including culturally sensitive ones such as publishing and media.

Delve into the wider protest movement, however, and the demands get more nuanced. Many students are deeply cynical towards Taiwan’s traditional political parties, owing in part to failed mobilizations in the past – most recently on the issue of nuclear power – and in part due to the cross-strait service pact’s slipshod lifecycle: signed in secret, shelved for eight months, and ultimately bypassed for article-by-article review due to politicking by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and creative interpretation of parliamentary convention by the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT).

Indeed the storming came the night after KMT lawmaker Chang Ching-Chung announced the premature end of an inter-party review of the service pact from some distant corner of the legislature floor – he couldn’t make it up to the podium because it was being physically blocked off by a posse of DPP lawmakers.

This kind of political theatre has had the effect of pushing the younger generation out of the mainstream, and the sunflower movement has consequently been quick to disassociate itself from any affiliation with the opposition DPP. Many of the protesters believe that both of Taiwan’s major parties are more concerned with getting themselves elected than carefully deliberating what is best for the future of their homeland.

Thus the question becomes: what do the protesters believe is best for Taiwan? While there is no shortage of signs pertaining to Taiwan’s political destiny (“Don’t let Taiwan become the next Hong Kong!” read one), the protests have an overarching economic element that might surprise those inclined to view Taiwanese politics through the exclusive lens of cross-strait relations. I asked a professor from Hualien what these protests were about and his immediate response was simply “globalization.” Later, one of the students on the microphone compared the sense of community surrounding his father’s tiny shop in Nantou County with the faceless onslaught of Costco and other large retailers. These concerns echo the current economic reality faced by Taiwanese youths entering the workforce, that of stagnant wages and a rising cost of living.

Walking around the protest site on Saturday, it was hard not to be struck by the high level of organization on display. A legion of student volunteers worked tirelessly to direct pedestrian traffic, distribute food, drinks, and blankets, and minimize the protest’s impact on local residents and businesses. Doctors and nurses had also volunteered to remain on-site, and there was a list of lawyers on standby should protesters require any legal assistance. The atmosphere was laid-back and jovial, with people of all ages coming to see the protest site and lend their support. Even the odd policeman standing guard at the sidelines was willing to crack a smile for a photo.

Sunday was a different story entirely. Students broke through a police barrier and flooded into the nearby Executive Yuan building (the government’s cabinet offices) early in the evening, creating a more chaotic atmosphere as volunteers struggled to cope with new developments. Unlike with the original occupation site, the executive branch of government has the authority to order a police intervention at the Executive Yuan, which is exactly what they did. Riot police amassed leading up to midnight when the order finally came to move in. Seated students were dragged one-by-one from the building, and in some cases were brutally attacked with batons and water cannons. It took until after dawn for the site to be completely cleared, resulting in 58 arrests and over 150 injuries.

As of Tuesday afternoon the occupation of the Legislative Yuan is still ongoing, and Taiwanese people from all wakes of life are still digesting the shocking pictures and video from the police action on Sunday. It appears the protests are still gaining momentum, with thousands sleeping on the streets through Monday night and a large vigil being held outside the Executive Yuan at dawn. There are also scattered calls for a strike from various universities, and a crowd-funding initiative has been launched to purchase advertising space in the New York Times and Apple Daily (a popular Hong Kong newspaper).

It appears that the students aren’t going anywhere, precluding any quick return to work for the spitting, brawling, hair-pulling, and shoe-throwing “adults” who claim to represent them. And given that President Ma (who currently enjoys a 10% approval rating) is politically “all in” on bringing Taiwan into China’s economic orbit, it’s unlikely that he will acquiesce to their demands unless new circumstances force his hand.

Zachary Fillingham is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article first appeared.

Kerry’s Looming Deadline And The Peace Process Industry – OpEd

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As the US-imposed April 29 deadline for a ‘framework’ agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority looms, time is also running out for the American administration itself. The Obama administration must now conjure up an escape route to avoid a political crisis if the talks are to fail, as they surely will.

Chances are the Americans knew well that peace under the current circumstances is simply not attainable. The Israeli government’s coalition is so adamantly anti-Arab, anti-peace and anti any kind of agreement that would fall short from endorsing the Israeli apartheid-like occupation, predicated on colonial expansion, annexations of borders, land confiscation, control of holy places and much more. Ideally for Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies in the right, far-right and ultranationalists, Palestinians would need to be crammed in disjointed communities, separated from each other by walls, Jewish settlements, Jewish-only bypass roads, checkpoints, security fences, and a large concentration of Israeli military presence including permanent Israeli control of the Jordan Valley. In fact, while politicians tirelessly speak of peace, the above is the exact ‘vision’ that the Israelis had in mind almost immediately following the 1967 war – the final conquest of all of historic Palestine and occupation of Arab lands.

Palestinians are currently paying the price of earlier Israeli visions, where Vladimir Jabotinsky’s ‘Iron Wall’ of 1923 was coupled with the Allon plan, named after Yigal Allon, a former general and minister in the Israeli government, who took on the task of drawing an Israeli design for the newly conquered Palestinian territories in 67. Not only would it not make any sense for a Zionist leader like Netanyahu – backed by one of the most rightwing governments in Israeli history – to bargain with Palestinians on what he considers to be Eretz Yisrael – the Whole Land of Israel -he has shown no desire, not even the most miniscule, to reach an agreement that would provide Palestinians with any of their rightful demands, true sovereignty notwithstanding.

It is implausible that the Americans were unaware of Israel’s lack of interest in the whole undertaking. For one, Israeli extremists like Naftali Bennett – Israel’s minister of economy and the head of the rightwing political party the Jewish Home – are constantly reminding the US through unconstrained insults that Israel is simply not interested in peacemaking efforts. The Americans persist, however, for reasons that are hardly related to peace or justice.

Previous administrations suffered unmitigated failures in the past as they invested time, effort, resources, and reputation, even to a greater extent than to Obama’s, in order to broker an agreement. There are the familiar explanations of why they failed, including the objection to any US pressure on Israel by the pro-Israel Zionist lobby in Washington, which remains very strong despite setbacks. The lobby maintains a stronghold on the US Congress in all matters related to Israel and Israeli interests anywhere.

Preparing for the foreseeable failure, US Secretary of State John Kerry remained secretive about his plans, leaving analysts in suspense over what is being discussed between Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiators and the Israeli government. From the very start, Kerry downgraded expectations. But the secrecy didn’t last for long. According to Palestinian sources cited in al-Quds newspaper, the most widely read Palestinian daily, PA president Abbas had pulled out of a meeting with Kerry in Paris late February because Kerry’s proposal didn’t meet the minimum of Palestinian expectations.

According to the report, it turned out that Kerry’s ambitious peace agenda was no more than a rehash of everything that Israel tried to impose by force or diplomacy, and Palestinians had consistently rejected: reducing the Palestinian aspiration of a Jerusalem capital into a tiny East Jerusalem neighborhood (Beit Hanina), and allowing Israel to keep 10 large settlement blocks built illegally on Palestinian land, aside from a land swap meant to accommodate Israel’s security needs. Moreover, the Jordan Valley would not be part of any future Palestinian state, nor would international forces be allowed there either. In other words, Israel would maintain the occupation under any other name, except that the PA would be allowed a level of autonomy over Palestinian population centers. It is hard to understand how Kerry’s proposal is any different from the current reality on the ground.

Most commentary dealing with the latest US push for a negotiated agreement would go as far back as Bush’s Roadmap of 2002, the Arab peace initiative earlier the same year, or even the Oslo accords of 1993. What is often ignored is the fact that the ‘peace process’ is a political invention by a hardliner, US politician Henry Kissinger, who served as a National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State in the Nixon Administration. The idea was to co-opt the Arabs following the Israeli military victory of 1967, the sudden expansion of Israel’s borders into various Arab borders, with full US support and reinforcement. It was Kissinger himself who lobbied for massive US arms to Israel that changed the course of the 1973 war, and he was the man who worked to secure Israeli gains through diplomacy.

While many are quick to conclude that the ‘peace process’ has been a historical failure, the bleak estimation discounts that the intent behind the ‘peace process’ was never to secure a lasting peace, but Israeli military gains. In that sense, it has been a splendid success. Over the years, however, the ‘peace process’ became an American investment in the Middle East, a status quo in itself, and a reason for political relevance. During the administration of both Bushes, father and son, the ‘peace process’ went hand in hand with the Iraq war. The Madrid Peace Talks in 1991 were initiated following the US-led war in Kuwait and Iraq, and was meant to balance out the extreme militancy that had gripped and destabilized the region. George W. Bush’s Roadmap fell between the war on Afghanistan and months before the war on Iraq. Bush was heavily criticized for being a ‘war president’ and for having no peace vision. The Roadmap, which was drafted with the help of pro-Israel neoconservative elements in his administration, in consultation with the lobby and heavy amendments by the Israeli government, was W Bush’s ‘peace’ overture. Naturally, the Roadmap failed, but until this day, Bush’s insincere drive for peace had helped maintain the peace process charade for a few more years, until Bill Clinton arrived to the scene, and kick started the make-believe process once more.

In the last four decades, the ‘peace process’ became an American diplomatic staple in the region. It is an investment that goes hand in hand with their support of Israel and interest in energy supplies. It is an end in itself, and is infused regularly for reasons other than genuine peace.

Now that Kerry’s deadline of a ‘framework agreement’ is quickly approaching, all parties must be preparing for all possibilities. Ultimately, the Americans are keen on maintaining the peace process charade; the Palestinian Authority is desperate to survive; and Israel needs to expand settlements unhindered by a Palestinian uprising or unnecessary international attention. But will they succeed?

Palestinians Must Abandon The ‘Peace Process’ – OpEd

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By Ghada Karmi

No term in the Israeli-Palestinians political lexicon has been so abused or so denuded of meaning as the “peace process”. It was set up after the Oslo Accords in 1993, to settle the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians by peaceful negotiations, but has led nowhere.

Yet it is still ongoing, its latest manifestation launched in August 2013, when US Secretary of State John Kerry put forward an ambitious plan to resolve all the major issues that have bedevilled the conflict within the space of nine months. The result he envisaged was a “final-status agreement” over borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees, which when resolved, would supposedly end the conflict for good.

Now close to the deadline proposed by Kerry, it is clear that no settlement is in the offing. Desperate to salvage the process, Kerry has come up with the idea of a “Framework Agreement” that sets out basic principles for the two sides to negotiate on in future. This, he hopes, will keep the “peace process” going for longer.

Yet Israel’s policy has been the exact opposite. In December 2013, Israeli ministers voted eight to three to annex the Jordan valley, and from the start of this year, West Bank settlements were set to be expanded by 2,553 new housing units. A law preventing the Israeli prime minister from discussing the status of Jerusalem or the refugee issue at the peace talks without prior majority approval from the Israeli parliament, was proposed in January.

The Israeli prime minister subsequently assured his Likud party ministers and other Israeli political figures that he would reject any mention of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem in the Framework Agreement. Israel has also reiterated its refusal to permit any return of the Palestinians refugees within its borders, and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been pushing for a transfer of Arabs living in the Triangle area of the Galilee to Palestinian Authority rule. To all these conditions has been added the requirement to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

In an attempt to deter the US secretary of state further, senior Israeli officials have been accusing him of being an anti-Semite. The final straw came last week when Israel refused to release 26 Palestinian prisoners, the last of a total of 104 long time prisoners whose release was agreed on as a condition for the Palestinians’ participation in the revived peace negotiations, last summer. Fearing that they would now pull out as a result of this Israeli breach of its commitments, the US has been making frantic efforts to prevent such an outcome, proposing an extension of the talks beyond the April 29 deadline. Israel has responded by offering to release the prisoners but only if the Palestinians agree to the talks’ extension.

These absurd political maneuverings only serve to obscure the fundamental reality. In trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kerry’s task is impossible to realize. This is not, as is often misleadingly asserted, because the issues are complex or because “painful compromises” are needed from both sides. The issues, in fact, are so embarrassingly simple it is an insult to the intelligence to have to set them down.

In plain English, one side has stolen land and resources belonging to the other and refuses to give them up. The thief is supported by powerful external agencies, while the losing side has no equivalent support. In this situation, it would be normal to call on an independent force or arbiter to compel the thief to return the stolen goods, and “compromise” would not be applicable.

But in the peace process as configured by those on the side of the thief, there is no independent agency, only an “arbiter” whose starting point is one of total commitment to the thief’s welfare. How then, to solve the conflict that has arisen because of the robbery, but without penalizing the robber or forcing him to return the booty? That, in essence, is where the problem lies for Kerry and his predecessors.

The “peace process” has all along been predicated on these lines, that Israel’s welfare is paramount. What this has meant in practice is that pressure can only be applied to the Palestinians, and the ineffectual Arab states. Since Israel long ago won the battle to keep 80 percent of Palestine, the area behind the 1967 border and referred to as “Israel proper”, it is the 20 percent that remains which Israel is fighting to keep.

Kerry’s negotiations are concerned with how to divide that 20 percent in Israel’s favor while giving the Palestinians something too. Since whatever he proposes requires Israel’s agreement, the only room for maneuvering he has, is to minimize the offer to the Palestinians even further to ensure Israel’s acquiescence. On the other hand, if the offer is too inadequate, the Palestinians will not accept it. This dilemma has forced Kerry to draw up an interim agreement and to propose a time extension for further negotiations.

His Framework Agreement has not been published yet, as all peace talks have been conducted in total secrecy, but from various leaks and reports it would seem that it deals with all the major questions. Israel would retain its major West Bank settlements, annexing up to 10 percent of the land.

The Palestinians would receive 5.5 percent of as yet unspecified Israeli land in return. Israel would have to give up the Jordan Valley, to be subsequently policed by either NATO or combined Jordanian-US troops, or some combination of troops from friendly Muslim states, with Israeli oversight of the Jordan border and the right of veto over entrants. Gaza would be connected to the West Bank by bridges or tunnels. Israel would evacuate its forces from the new demilitarized Palestinian state over a period of five years, and NATO could take their place.

The Palestinian capital would be outside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, in the villages adjoining East Jerusalem like al-Ram, Abu Dis, or al-Aizariyya, and a multi-national committee would be in charge of the holy places in the old city. The right of refugee return would be dealt with through an international compensation fund for refugees and offers of immigration to Australia, with a token number of returnees to Israel. If all that is agreed, it would constitute the end of the conflict. Kerry is reported to be pressing both sides hard to accept these ideas, many of which have been aired before and already largely accepted by the Palestinian leadership. It is Israel that is likely not to agree, and herein lies Kerry’s problem.

Kerry’s plan contains many of the features of previous peace proposals. None of them answers to international law, Palestinian rights or elemental justice. As a Haaretz article candidly put it on January 6, to succeed, Kerry’s plan demands no less than a total and abject Palestinian surrender to Israeli and US diktat. And for that reason, it should be rejected outright without extensions or delays. The Palestinians should immediately join all the UN bodies open to “Palestine” as a non-member state and especially the International Criminal Court where they must initiate proceedings against Israel’s breaches of international law. They must call for an international conference to discuss a settlement of the conflict and the resolution of all their fundamental rights.

That none of this has happened so far is testament to the intimidation practiced by Israel and its allies on the Palestinian leadership. They have been persuaded that pragmatism and realpolitik is the best option. Israel is too powerful to fight and so they should settle for what is possible. This pernicious idea has been the guiding principle of the Palestinian negotiators, with the inevitable consequence that they have been forced to concede more of their rights with each round of talks.

To this sorry state of affairs has now been added an explicit US threat, that if the Palestinians reject the Kerry peace plan, they will face a political and economic blockade. All US and European aid will stop and they will be isolated. No Arab state has so far stepped in to make up for these threatened Palestinian losses, and most are, anyway, involved with conflicts inside their own borders.

At this moment in history the world appears weary of the Palestine problem and wants to see it end. But it is imperative that the Palestinians do not respond to this situation by selling their case cheap. It is true they are weak, but they have one strength: to say “No”. No peace plan can go ahead without their assent, and Kerry and his proposals will come to nothing if they refuse them. They have alternatives and it would be irresponsible not to use them. Applying to accede to 15 multilateral treaties and conventions as the Palestinian president has just done on behalf of “Palestine” is a good start, but it is not enough. The Palestinian leadership, for too long timid and self-serving, finally has a chance to redeem itself.

- Dr Ghada Karmi is the author of Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine. (This article was originally published in Al Jazeera – www.aljazeera.com)

US To Probe Rigging Of Stock Market By High Speed Trading

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The U.S. Justice Department is investigating high-speed trading for possible insider trading, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers on Friday.

The disclosure comes the same week that regulators and the FBI also confirmed they are looking into potential wrongdoing by high-frequency stock traders.

Regulators have been examining whether ordinary investors are at an unfair disadvantage to high-speed traders, who use computer algorithms to rapidly dart in and out of trades to earn fractions of a penny that add up to big profits over time.

“I can confirm that we at the Justice Department are investigating this practice to determine whether it violates insider trading laws,” Holder told a House panel at a hearing on the Justice Department’s budget.

Earlier this week the heads of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission also confirmed those agencies have several active probes into market integrity and structure issues, including high-speed and automated trading.

On Monday, the FBI confirmed it has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation of high-speed trading for months, an outgrowth from the years-long crackdown on insider-trading.

The bureau is examining whether high-frequency traders are front-running others’ trades by getting to exchanges first.

A big trade, such as a bank shorting a million shares of a company under investigation, could be considered a material event.

Reuters also reported earlier this week that the FBI is looking at areas such as whether high-speed firms can cut the line in terms of how security orders are placed or are engaged in “spoofing” trades that are not really trades to give the illusion of market activity.

Acting CFTC chairman Mark Wetjen said on Thursday his agency is also investigating whether spoofing runs afoul of the derivatives regulator’s rules.

The long-running debate about high-frequency trading intensified on Monday, after best-selling author Michael Lewis published a new book, “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.”

The book contends that high-speed traders have rigged the stock market, profiting from trades made at a speed unavailable to ordinary investors.

Proponents of high-speed trading have criticized the book, saying high-speed traders actually benefit other investors by providing liquidity to the market.

Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan And Future Roadmap For Caucasus – Interview

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Interview with Firouz Dowlatabadi, Iran’s Former Ambassador to Turkey

The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met and conferred with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov on the sidelines of a trilateral meeting among Iran, Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Turkish city of Van. According to a report by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, during the meeting, the two countries’ foreign ministers discussed important issues related to bilateral relations between Tehran and Baku including diplomatic exchanges between the two countries’ high-ranking officials, the joint commission for bilateral cooperation, Tehran-Baku cooperation in the Caspian Sea region, considering facilities for exchanges between the two countries people, promoting cooperation in cultural fields, as well as further cooperation in the fields of energy and transportation. The meeting was important in that Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan are among the most important countries in the region and after the inauguration of the new Iranian administration the two sides have indicated their strong resolve for further expansion of bilateral relations in all fields. In addition, under present circumstances when the Central Asia and Eurasia are going through dire straits as a result of the existing tensions in these regions, expansion of relations between Iran – which enjoys a high grade of political and security stability – and other regional countries can promise a better future outlook for these geographically important regions. These issues have been discussed in the following interview with Firouz Dowlatabadi, the former Iranian ambassador to Turkey and an analyst of Caucasus issues.

Q: [Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif has met and conferred with Elmar Mammadyarov and Ahmet Davutoglu, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Turkey, during his recent trip to Turkey. In view of the fact that such trilateral meetings among Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan are rare and in the light of the existing challenges among these three countries, how important, do you think, this meeting is?

A: This meeting is very important from various viewpoints. This meeting has taken place after the lapse of many years; 16 years to be exact. We have seldom seen a trilateral meeting among Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan and this meeting is of very high importance. Another significant point here is the existence of common interests among Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan. However, during recent years, there have been differences among the three countries in such areas as foreign policy and national security. The main problem is not simply about differences between Iran and Azerbaijan or the issue of Syria, which has been overshadowing relations between Iran and Turkey in the past few years. Measures taken by certain countries, including Armenia, in recent years, have stirred concerns in Turkey and prompted it to gradually distance from Azerbaijan. Of course, there is a list of other issues which can be added to the aforesaid challenges. Turkish businesspeople have been facing problems in Azerbaijan which has further escalated tensions between the two countries. Of course, such issues may not be very important in essence, but a lot of emphasis has been put on them by foreign policy officials of the three countries. As a result, such meetings can pave the way for the improvement of trilateral relations and also affect the situation in Caucasus region. In view of the friendly atmosphere that has governed the meeting I hope it would be followed with favorable outcomes for three neighboring countries by promoting trilateral regional cooperation among them.

Q: During this meeting, the Turkish foreign minister has expressed concern about what is going on in Syria. On the other hand, Azerbaijan has sometimes accused Iran of what it describes as Iran’s interference in that country’s internal affairs. How Iran could possibly allay the concerns of Turkey and Azerbaijan as a prelude to improvement and further expansion of trilateral cooperation and relations?

A: Part of these concerns cannot be basically removed by Iran because they are not real. Every government may face challenges within its borders and with its own people and whenever they cannot find a decisive solution for those challenges, they attribute them to foreign interference. The remarks made by Azeri officials [about Iran's interference in their country’s internal affairs] are nothing new and have become a regular process during the past 30 years. Every time they have been facing acute problems inside their country, they have either adopted suppressive policies or tried to attribute their problems to foreign interference. Sometimes they accused Russia of interference in their internal affairs and in other occasions, they accused Iran. None of these allegations, however, are true. This is why none of the Iranian foreign policy officials take such allegations seriously. However, since those allegations are made and announced by official figures, Iran also takes an official stance on them by totally rejecting those allegations. Basically, Azerbaijan’s position in this regard is not worth further discussion because it has become a regular issue and Azerbaijani officials have been constantly taking this position. As for Syria and Mr. Davutoglu’s remarks, it would suffice to say that Turkey’s policy in Syria has failed. Turkey’s policy was based on cooperation with very violent terrorist groups in Syria and the United States was also a party to that policy. It is now clear that Turkey’s policy on this very important issue has failed and they believe that the failure was a result of Iran’s steadfast support for the government and people of Syria. As a result, they are discontent with Iran’s policy and it is natural for them to express concern. I think this is not very important. It is natural in the foreign policy, especially in Western models, that when a very important development takes place on the sidelines of their foreign policy approaches, they usually make remarks to downplay the importance of what has happened. Especially in case of countries like Turkey and Azerbaijan, it is quite natural for them to try to show to the United States that their closeness with Iran and improvement of trilateral relations has not been anything serious or even important. However, we know that this has been a very important meeting.

Q: During the past eight years, Iran’s foreign policy has been mostly oriented toward the Latin American countries and less attention has been paid to Caucasus region and Iran’s northwestern neighbor [Azerbaijan]. Mr. Zarif’s trip to Turkey and his trilateral meeting shows renewed attention of Iran’s foreign policy apparatus to this region. What opportunities await Iran in Caucasus region?

A: Caucasus is one of the most important regions in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In reality, increased political influence in Caucasus region will be translated into very secure influence in the area of the Black Sea in North Caucasus and in the Caspian Sea region. This is a very important geopolitical area for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. Historically speaking, this region has been of very high significance in delineating the future outlook of Iran’s relations with Europe as well as future oil and gas cooperation in the Caspian Sea and Caucasus regions. As a result, this is a very important region. However, during the past eight years the Iranian foreign policy was unfortunately devoid of a coherent and regular approach and this problem was not specific to Caucasus region alone. Mr. Zarif is currently making up for the past errors.

Q: Caucasus is also a major sphere of influence for Russia. As a result, further deepening of Iran’s relations with countries in this region, including Azerbaijan, and holding of trilateral meetings may stir concerns among Russians about Iran’s rising influence in this region. How, do you think, Iran will be able to allay Russia’s concerns in this regard while going on with its current effort to expand and deepen its cooperation with countries in Caucasus region?

A: It is true that Caucasus is under the influence of Russian policies, but the Islamic Republic of Iran’s policies in this region have been also very effective because Iran’s presence in Caucasus has its roots in history. In every corner of this region you can find the signs and symbols of the Iranian civilization or the Iranian – Islamic civilization. Profound cultural relations have existed between our country and Armenia and Georgia during the past decade. I think Caucasus is not simply a sphere of influence for Russia because Iran sway’s the same amount of influence in this region as Russia. In the meantime, we and Russians have a common enemy in this region, which is the United States and, to a lesser extent, the European countries. Just in the same way that Russia is a strategic counterweight to Europe, we are also a strategic counterweight to the United States in Caucasus. This equation has actually dispelled many bilateral concerns that may exist in the two countries and has paved the ground for more cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in this region. This is why we have never had a serious problem with Russians in this region during the past 20 years. I don’t think there is any reason to be concerned about this issue.

Source: Iranian Diplomacy (IRD)
http://www.irdiplomacy.ir/
translated By: Iran Review.Org

Obama: Budget Ensures Opportunity For All Hardworking Americans – Transcript

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In this week’s address, the President highlighted the important differences between the budget he’s put forward – built on opportunity for all – and the budget House Republicans are advocating for, which stacks the deck against the middle class. While the President is focused on building lasting economic security and ensuring that hardworking Americans have the opportunity to get ahead, Republicans are advancing the same old top-down approach of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and slashing important investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
April 5, 2014

Hi, everybody.

Today, our economy is growing and our businesses are consistently generating new jobs. But decades-long trends still threaten the middle class. While those at the top are doing better than ever, too many Americans are working harder than ever, but feel like they can’t get ahead.

That’s why the budget I sent Congress earlier this year is built on the idea of opportunity for all. It will grow the middle class and shrink the deficits we’ve already cut in half since I took office.

It’s an opportunity agenda with four goals. Number one is creating more good jobs that pay good wages. Number two is training more Americans with the skills to fill those jobs. Number three is guaranteeing every child access to a great education. And number four is making work pay – with wages you can live on, savings you can retire on, and health care that’s there for you when you need it.

This week, the Republicans in Congress put forward a very different budget. And it does just the opposite: it shrinks opportunity and makes it harder for Americans who work hard to get ahead.

The Republican budget begins by handing out massive tax cuts to households making more than $1 million a year. Then, to keep from blowing a hole in the deficit, they’d have to raise taxes on middle-class families with kids. Next, their budget forces deep cuts to investments that help our economy create jobs, like education and scientific research.

Now, they won’t tell you where these cuts will fall. But compared to my budget, if they cut everything evenly, then within a few years, about 170,000 kids will be cut from early education programs. About 200,000 new mothers and kids will be cut off from programs to help them get healthy food. Schools across the country will lose funding that supports 21,000 special education teachers. And if they want to make smaller cuts to one of these areas, that means larger cuts in others.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican budget also tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act – even though that would take away health coverage from the more than seven million Americans who’ve done the responsible thing and signed up to buy health insurance. And for good measure, their budget guts the rules we put in place to protect the middle class from another financial crisis like the one we’ve had to fight so hard to recover from.

Policies that benefit a fortunate few while making it harder for working Americans to succeed are not what we need right now. Our economy doesn’t grow best from the top-down; it grows best from the middle-out. That’s what my opportunity agenda does – and it’s what I’ll keep fighting for. Thanks. And have a great weekend.


Pakistan: Taliban, Talks And Tribulations – Analysis

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By Adeel Khalid

Pakistan is at inflexion point while the talks with Taliban are taking centre stage in political arena. According to a recent news report, the committees representing the government and the Taliban agreed on to extend the ceasefire and take measures to speed up the dialogue process. The head of the TTP committee, Maulana Samiul haq, confirmed that the ceasefire would be maintained beyond March. However it is a crucial developmental stage in negotiating with Taliban but on government side, but it is reactive incoherent at policy front to border a defined agenda to put forth accordingly in this peace process which is evident from the contradictory rhetoric and unplanned agenda emanating from within the polity of different discourses; reflects inconsistency and irresoluteness on government part to tackle this existential threat.

However, the objectives sought to be achieved unclear and opaque. Obliviously the government cannot afford to accommodate any of the main demands of the TTP without compromising the Pakistan’s Constitution and the prosperity of the country. These demands include the release of hundreds of prisoners, including some high-profile people, and setting up of a “peace zone” to allow free movement of the Taliban. Finally they resist for Sunni (Sharia) rule in Pakistan and the creation of an Islamic Emirate in Pakistan and Afghanistan which are beyond negotiable point for the public, policy-makers and politicians alike.

What is required in essence is the TTP’s surrender? Can this be achieved through talks and at this time? The right time to negotiate with the TTP would be once it is militarily and politically on the defensive. Negotiations can succeed provided these are conducted with the “principles” drafted by the government of Pakistan. These principles should be in aligning with the Constitution of Pakistan.

The recent issued internal security policy of Pakistan; though it aims to continue dialogue and enhance deterrence but inadequacies liquidate; as it is too centralize and narrow to implement in its existence. Certainly it has other shortcomings as well. The TTP is a hydra-headed monster, which includes a score of extremist parties and groups, with diverse aims, composition, locations and affiliations.

A large number of its members are foreigners—-Arabs, Uzbeks, Afghans. Its affiliations are complex in nature: al Qaeda supports it; Afghan intelligence collaborates with it and Indian intelligence has infiltrated in it. It is not only difficult to dismantle a Frankenstein but also to engage such a diversified body of threat which is penetrated in every nook and corner of the country.

Can talks and negotiations succeed in such environment? Perhaps that is why the government has distinguished Taliban into good, bad, and ugly Taliban respectively. Whatever the policy be, but it needs to be clearly defined and more importantly secure public support vis-a-vis media. Else, it will fail. As in the case of Ukraine crisis where the internal confusion, corruption and chaos illustrate, can quickly become a self-created threat to a nation.

It is important to identify major irritants which may thwart this peace process as it did in the past. Drones attack can halt this peace process as in case of killing of Hakeemullah Masud, Pakistan interior minister proclaimed it had killed the chances of negotiating peace with Taliban. So the US should maneuver while keeping in mind the ground realities along with the consent of all major stake-holders. Secondly, the experience with negotiating with Taliban has been never happy one and cannot succeed unless they are pursued from a position of strength. Such an incident has been experienced in Swat. Though, lessons should be learnt from the recent examples of successful counter-insurgency operations, such as Colombia, and Sri Lanka.

How to draft a coherent policy at this stage? Pakistan needs to get its policy house in order which is the prerequisite for a coherent policy drafting process and implementing it. This policy should be crafted after establishing the consensus of all major stake-holders coupled with the visionary leadership; it would enable them to evolve a counter-insurgency and counterterrorism strategy in a holistic fashion. The strategy should incorporate the orthodox four Ds formula of dismantling, defeating, decapitating and de radicalization the militants, terrorists, and extremists.

Dismantling all the leadership expulsion of the foreigners within the TTP, end to collaborate with external powers should be the main concern of this political fiesta. Asserting Pakistan’s sovereignty must be the central principle of this policy which should not be allowed to sabotage at any cost. Pakistan army has the numbers and capability to conduct multiple and simultaneous operations to kill or capture TTP militants in Fata, Swat, Peshawar, and Karachi. It should be authorized by the civilian government to do so. Decapitation involves those leaders who remain recalcitrant would be legitimate targets for elimination. Pakistan’s security forces should acquire capabilities to conduct such operations. De-radicalization TTP prevents them to replenish them to gain power which creates anguish and distress in the society.

Talks have been rejected in the past by the elected governments as talks abject the legitimacy of the elected leadership and undermine the democratic spirit in Pakistan. This time the reverse of it happens whence the elected government announce rapprochement with Taliban despite all tribulations; yet it aims to triumph the peace and stability of the land. Though it is an appreciative move on the part of elected democratic government; all major stakeholders i.e. media, judiciary, military, bureaucracy, parliament and intelligentsia should be on the same page which should extend their support for the government to make this effort a success instead of making conjecturing statements in order to politicize the issue because there are many democracies that have confronted terrorism, have, in fact, negotiated with terrorists one way or the other. The British government kept up back channel diplomacy with Irish Republican Army (IRA), despite its subversive activities. Spain negotiated with the Basque Homeland and Freedom Group that carried out terrorist acts in the country. Even Israel, which came down hard on terrorism, negotiated secretly with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). However the peace must be given a chance to prevail in the Land of Pure.

Adeel Khalid
The author is a research scholar at BeaconHouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan.

Controversial Soccer Club Chief Declares Candidacy In Egypt’s Presidential Election – Analysis

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Egyptian soccer is adding salt to the run-up to presidential elections that are certain to be won by the country’s strongman, newly retired general Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, with the announcement of the controversial chairman of one of Egypt’s foremost clubs that he too was a presidential candidate.

An outspoken lawyer known for his theatrics, Mortada Mansour, chairman of storied Cairo soccer club Al Zamalek SC, announced his candidacy for the Egyptian presidency barely a week after he was elected for a third term as head of a sport institution whose supporters played a key role in mass protests in the last three years that forced two presidents, Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Morsi, out of office.

Mr. Mansour’s re-election alongside that of Taher Mahmoud as chairman of Zamalek arch rival Al Ahli SC has been called into question by FIFA, which suspects interference by a government that since the military coup last July against Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s only democratically elected president, has sought to brutally squash any opposition.

Messrs Mansour and Mahmoud were elected in polling ordered by newly appointed Youth and Sports Minister Khaled Abdel-Aziz despite the fact that a new sports law is about to be issued. Both Al Ahli and Zamalek have charged that the elections violated FIFA statutes and should have been postponed. Mr. Abdel Aziz’s predecessor, Taher Abou Zeid twice, in the last nine months sought to replace the management of Zamalek and Al Ahli, Africa’s two top performing clubs.

The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) caught between the government and FIFA has unsuccessfully sought to evade taking a stand on the legality of the elections.

In a letter late last month to the EFA, FIFA expressed “deep concern about the fact that the Egyptian Football Association did not implement the statutes and did not react to the interference from the authorities and to different correspondences sent by FIFA in this regard. The Committee deemed that the absence of answers and/or the very late replies should not be tolerated anymore and it is therefore anticipated that EFA will show due diligence in the future.”

It was not immediately clear why Mr. Mansour decided to enter a presidential race in which only one other candidate, Nasserite Hamdeen Sabahi, has so far been willing to challenge Mr. Al Sisi who has cloaked himself in a mantle of nationalism and popularism and a military-backed vow to root out terrorism increasingly defined as any form of support for Mr. Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood or opposition to military-backed rule. Mr. Mansour’s initial election promises appeared to differ little from those of Mr. Al Sisi and were certain to be opposed by his club’s militant fans.

“I do not need Egypt’s top office. I only want to fulfil the needs of the Egyptians,” Mr. Mansour told Turkey’s Anadolou Agency. He said his election program would be based on the “respect of law”. In a statement that is likely to put him at odds with militants in Zamalek’s fan base, he vowed to ban protests for a year “in order to give a chance for the economy and tourism to recover.”

Zamalek fans, who in recent years have fought vicious street battles with security forces in which scores were killed and thousands injured, greeted Mr. Mansour’s candidacy on social media with ridicule. Mr. Mansour was twice fired by the sports ministry during his nine-year tenure because of his theatrics that included a fist fight with his erstwhile deputy and lifting his shoe in an insulting gesture during an Egypt Cup final against arch-rival Al Ahli.

The fans have long demanded Mr. Mansour’s departure, accusing him of corruption and mismanagement. The fans, who repeatedly attacked the club’s headquarters in a bid to force Mr. Mansour to resign, fear that he will dismiss the team’s recently appointed coach, former Egyptian international Ahmad Hossam ‘Mido,’ who like the supporters opposed Mr. Mansour’s candidacy.

“I have a message for Mido: please stay away from politics and do not discuss any matters that are not related to football,” Mr. Mansour said in an interview with Egyptian satellite channel CBC immediately after his re-election as Zamalek chairman.

Mido like most Egyptian players refused to join the mass protests in 2011 on Cairo’s Tahrir Square that toppled Mr. Mubarak, but denied that he opposed the popular revolt in which street battled-hardened fans of Zamalek and Al Alhli were crucial to fortifying protesters resolve.

“I appeared only once on TV and I asked the politicians to listen to the protesters and in an interview with (state-owned newspaper) Al-Ahram I literally demanded former president Mubarak to retire. I didn’t go to Tahrir Square because I didn’t want anyone to claim that I was a key factor in the revolution’s success because the champions are all who protested from the first day for the sake of Egypt,” Mido said at the time.

Mido was disciplined some two years later while playing for England’s Barnsley FC for participating in an anti-Israel protest during which he tweeted: “In London against Israel…. Oh Lord burn them.”

Mido’s anti-Israel stance endeared him to fans who define support for the Palestinians as part of their ethos at a time that relations between players and fans were strained because of the militants’ continued protests that forced length suspensions of league matches and prompted security forces to ban spectators from matches that were played.

China’s New Strategic Direction: Community Of Common Destiny – Analysis

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By Geeta Kochhar

“Community with common destiny” (Mingyun gongtongti) seems to be the new slogan in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy. This needs to be explored; what common destiny is China envisaging or is it planning to engage in serious confrontations with some neighbouring countries? What is China’s position vis-à-vis the neighbouring states? Will the newly acquired international status of China reshape the regional matrix favouring China? In particular, what will be the decisive factor for China in building strategic ties with neighbouring states?

In February 2014, Prof. Yan Xuetong, Dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations from Tsinghua University, in his lecture at the JNU also emphasized on this notion. While his talk focused on whether China can peacefully rise or not – a much debated subject matter with concerns mainly from neighbouring countries, Prof. Yan was quite assertive in his stand on the probability of war with Japan. In the post-cold war period, Deng Xiaoping had laid greater emphasis on a “low profile” policy (Taoguang yanghui) in international relations in order to hide its capabilities, focus on building national strength, and bide its time to become a major power.

Though state security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity remained as fundamental interests, but the focus shifted on developing the economy. China thus adopted a “Good-neighborly and partnership” policy (Yu ling we shan, yi ling wei ban). Its approach was driven by catering to its development needs; rather than strategic repositioning where US dominance was apparent. Hence, whether we see from the development perspective or from a security lens, neighbours figured as “strategic reliance belt” (Zhanlüe yituodai) for China. It is not to imply that China’s great power aspiration was in any way tamed down, but the strategic vision was clearly inclined to prioritize economic prosperity that will lead to the rejuvenation of the Chinese state.

In the 21st century, China has gained an edge over other states in relation to its comprehensive national strength, in particular economic strength. This is also underlined by the fact that the dream of reunification with Hong Kong and Macau in the 20th century was smooth along with no major political turmoil within the country over leadership transitions for decades. With relation to the neighbourhood policy, China has along compartmentalized friends with distant neighbours (Jin er bu qin), India surely fell in the distant neighbor category though having the closest border.

Therefore, though border disputes continued with certain neighbouring states, a move was made to seek common interests in economic development based on the win-win policy. Whether there was true win-win for both sides is another long debate, but serious confrontations and/or conflicts were avoided.

This approach now seems to be redesigned with the internal debates over the new direction of China’s foreign policy under the changing internal as well as external atmosphere. In particular, China’s concern over sea and water disputes along with heightened trans-border terrorist support has given rise to new formulations and approaches. Few years back, debates within China hovered around: whether to abandon the “low-profile” policy or to continue; whether to play active role in international relations keeping China’s core interests in mind or to continue passive role; and whether to take leadership positions or not? However, these debates have evolved into a new direction, especially with China repositioning its regional power status.

In 2007, the then President Hu Jintao first used the phrase “Community with common destiny” at the 17th National Party Congress Report in reference to cross-Strait relations. The phrase is now often used by President Xi Jinping at various forums to build strategic ties with neighbouring states. Although, critics view it as a newly founded assertive position of China whereby it wants to play a decisive role in regional affairs; Chinese official discourse defines it as a parameter to judge neighbouring states and to build a peaceful as well as stable surrounding environment. Prof. Yan posits that the countries which will play a constructive role in China’s rise will reap the actual benefit from China for its own development; while hostile nations will face sanctions and isolation.

China’s direction of advancement in neighbourhood policy manifests the desire of the Chinese to make allies that can support, compliment, and assist in larger areas than mere economic linkages. This also entails convergence of interests with neighbouring states that will forge new strategic alliances to counter power relations that harm China’s core interests. The definition of core interests, though expanding over the years, is also deep-rooted in its vision to revive the Chinese Nation as a strong global power. The possibility of which lies in its regaining of the claimed territories (both land and sea) as well as being recognized as a regional leader, which is still a challenged position.

Geeta Kochhar
Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Email: geeta@mail.jnu.ac.in

Karzai Praises Historic Afghan Presidential Election

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(RFE/RL) — Outgoing President Hamid Karzai has praised Afghans for embracing democracy following a largely peaceful first round of voting for president and local offices that featured a high voter turnout.

In a televised address, Karzai said Afghans had braved bad weather and threats of Taliban violence to cast their ballots.

“The Afghan nation today has put in practice their big jubilee of the nation’s participation in voting,” Karzai said. “Despite the cold and rainy weather and possible terrorist attack, our sisters and brothers nationwide took in this election and their participation is a step forward and it is a success for Afghanistan.”

The vote was a major step in what would be the country’s first democratic transfer of power in history.

Despite threats by the Taliban to disrupt the voting, no major attacks were reported. Voting was extended by one hour on April 5 due to a reported heavy turnout and rains.

Afghanistan’s election commission chief says preliminary estimates suggest turnout in the elections was 7 million out of 12 million eligible voters, or about 58 percent.

Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani, chairman of the Independent Election Commission, said that by midday some 3.5 million people had cast votes, 36 percent of them women.

Sattar Saadat, head of the Electoral Complaints Commission, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that some complaints of irregularities had already been reported.

“At least 58 complaints were officially recorded an hour ago. We received over 500 complaints over the telephone,” Saadat said. “Major complaints came from Wardak, Parwan, Kapisa, Kandahar, and so on. We will look at all of them.”

The last presidential election, in 2009, which returned outgoing President Hamid Karzai to office, was marred by widespread fraud and violence.

Interior Minister Omar Daudzai said there had been 140 attacks over 24 hours, leaving nine policemen, seven soldiers, and 89 Taliban killed. He said four civilians were killed and 43 were injured in election-related violence.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sidiq Siddiqi said that security forces prevented multiple attempted Taliban attacks.

“The Taliban and the terrorists that kept campaigning against elections and said they will not allow Afghans to participate in the elections, tried their utmost to launch attacks in Nangarhar, Khost, Ghazni and Konar,” he said.

“Fortunately, every one of their attempts to intimidate or harm the people was prevented by the Afghan security forces.”

Independent Election Commission chief Nuristani said security threats forced officials to close 211 of some 6,000 polling stations.

A shortage of ballots was reported at some polling stations. “We visited at least seven or eight voting stations to vote, but none of them had ballot papers. People are left in the middle of nowhere. Since 10 or 11 in the morning, people have been waiting for nothing,” a man from the northern Baghlan Province told RFE/RL.

Generally, voters said they felt positive as they arrived to cast ballots. Many vowed that Taliban threats could not prevent them from taking part in the election.

Many women participated. Hawa Hazrati from Kabul told RFE/RL, “Women’s participation was wonderful. The process was transparent, and clean. I am proud of our security forces because they made me feel secure like a new bride.”

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul congratulated Afghanistan on the elections, saying in a message on Twitter: “Congratulations to the many Afghans who are voting. You are making the country stronger, and shunning the Taliban.”

European Union foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton was cautiously optimistic.

“This will be a historic moment if we get this right, this democratic transition. We want to see everybody participating, including, I would say, all the women of Afghanistan and we welcome what has been done to try to prepare for these elections,” Ashton said.

“The latest information I have, has been that things are going forward and we wait to see now what the results will bring.”

Two of the front-runners in the presidential election, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, commented to the press after casting their ballots.

Ghani, a former finance minister, said the large turnout at polling stations sent a message to the enemies of Afghanistan that their threats cannot intimidate the country’s people.

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, called the election “one step forward toward a better future.”

After voting at a polling station near the presidential palace, President Hamid Karzai urged his countrymen to go to the polling stations “despite the rain, cold weather, and enemy threats.”

“Today is an important day for our future, the future of our country,” he added.

Independent Election Commission head Nuristani called on the Afghan people to “prove to the enemies of Afghanistan that nothing can stop them.”

Three contenders are expected to dominate the eight-man race to succeed Karzai, who has ruled for 12 years and is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. Widespread violence, massive fraud and vote-rigging marred Karzai’s reelection in 2009.

The front-runners are Ghani and two former foreign ministers, Abdullah and Zalmai Rasul.

The Taliban had threatened to use violence to disrupt Afghanistan’s presidential election. But outside of isolated incidents Afghans turned out in large numbers and voted in relative peace. Many displayed their purple fingers — occasionally the middle one — as a direct affront to the Taliban.

On the eve of the vote, award-winning German photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed and Canadian reporter Kathy Gannon was injured when a police officer opened fire on their car in the eastern town of Khost.

The police officer has been arrested. No organization has claimed responsibility.

Niedringhaus is the third journalist working for international media to be killed in Afghanistan during the election campaign.

First Results In Three Weeks

Afghanistan has 12 million eligible voters, and some 200,000 Afghan observers were expected to monitor the vote.

Some international observers pulled out after the Taliban last month attacked a high-security Kabul hotel, where many foreigners, including election monitors, were staying. Nine Afghan and foreign civilians were killed in the attack.

Preliminary results from the first round are expected on April 24 and a final result on May 14, around six weeks after voting day.

With no clear front-runner, it’s unlikely that any of the candidates will secure more than the 50 percent of the vote required to win outright. In that case, there will be a runoff between the two leading candidates on May 28.

The transfer of power to a new president is occurring as most Western combat forces are preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of this year.

Egyptian Journalists Strike

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Journalists in Egypt have gone on a one-day strike and staged a massive rally in protest at the killing of reporters covering anti-government protests.

On Friday, dozens of reporters and photographers rallied in the capital Cairo, shouting slogans in front of the journalists’ syndicate.

They also carried banners that read, “Stop killing journalists.”

The journalists pushed the military-installed authorities to take measures to ensure their safety. They also demanded that security forces protect reporters while covering protests.

This came a week after 22-year-old reporter Mayada Ashraf was killed while covering clashes at a protest in the northern neighborhood of Ain Shams.

Journalists have reportedly been the target of Egyptian authorities as part of a broader crackdown on popular dissent over the past months.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted on July 3, 2013.

In November, the military-backed authorities passed a law banning all but police-sanctioned protests. Since then, hundreds of anti-government protesters have been jailed for breaking the law.

Figures show Egypt’s military-backed government has jailed nearly 16,000 people over the past few months.

Anti-government demonstrators have been holding rallies almost on a daily basis, demanding that Morsi be reinstated.

Rights groups say at least 1,400 people have been killed in the violence since the ouster of Morsi, “most of them due to excessive force used by security forces.”

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